


Te Rerenga Wairua

by PengyChan



Category: Moana (2016)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2018-09-19 02:53:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 132,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9414797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PengyChan/pseuds/PengyChan
Summary: Found by the gods drifting at sea, Maui always assumed he had been thrown in it to drown. When that assumption is challenged, there is only one way to find closure: speaking to his long-departed family. But it’s never a smooth sail to the Underworld, and he’ll need help from a friend - plus a token that fell in the claws of an old enemy long ago.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is mostly based on the legend according to which Maui's mother believed him to be stillborn and therefore meant to bury him at sea - not abandon him as Maui says in the movie. Then again, how would he know? He was a baby. He may have made the wrong assumption. I liked the idea, and this fic happened.  
> This is a prologue; the next chapters will be set shortly after the movie.

There were things Tamatoa knew he wasn’t supposed to do. Leaving the cave and getting to the surface on his own was one of them; getting close to the humans was another. 

“You’re still too small and soft, and  _ this  _ won’t help you,” his grandmother had said, knocking on the seashell he was using until he grew old enough to harden his  _ own  _ shell. “Humans, birds, bigger crabs. If they catch you they’ll pull you out of the shell, crack you open and eat you up.”

“Like when we ate Ma?”

“Hah! Much more easily than that.  _ Her  _ shell was tough. Your tiny little pincers couldn’t even scratch it.  _ Tinytoa _ ,” Gran had mocked him, one eyestalk inching closer. 

Tamatoa had huffed and looked away, because of course that was true. His Gran had had to crack her shell open herself so that he could get to the flesh beneath, or else he wouldn’t have been able to eat anything. “I’m not  _ that  _ tiny anymore,” he had protested in the end, and she had given a guwaffing laugh, flicking at his antennae with her own.

“But still tiny enough for humans to catch and eat. Pouting at me won’t change that, you know.”

“I’ll get bigger!”

“If they don’t get you first, yes, you will.”

“And I’ll eat you!”

“I should hope so - I didn’t raise you to be  _ wasteful. _ But my death is still a great many years away, and so is the day you’ll be big enough to fend for yourself. So don’t you go near them until then, you hear?”

“... Sure.”

In the end, it was all a matter of  _ miscommunication. _ His Gran had taken his ‘sure’ as ‘sure, I won’t go near them’; what he had really meant was that sure, he had heard her. As far as he was concerned, he had made no promises. 

And even if he had, he’d break them anyway. There was no way he could resist the temptation to go, no matter what.

The humans’ stuff was just too  _ shiny. _

* * *

“Aw, I can’t find my bracelet!”

“Are you sure you left it here?”

“Yes! Right here on this rock!”

“Maybe it fell in the sand…?”

Tamatoa waited until they were all on their knees and digging through the sand before he scuttered away from his hiding place and away from the beach, under the cover of the vegetation and with his prize clutched tight in his pincers. It wasn’t anything  _ especially  _ shiny - a small bracelet of colored glass - but it was the best to be found on tiny humans, and at the moment they were the only ones he felt safe enough to take stuff from. Bigger humans had shinier stuff, but they were also more dangerous. 

… Besides, this wasn’t too bad. He liked the way it shone in the sun, the beads all bright blues and yellows. Tamatoa took another good look at it, holding it up against the sunlight, then grinned and put it around his neck. Not the best, but still a nice catch. Real nice. It would be nice to see how it looked on him before he headed back to the cave, he thought, and slipped out of the seashell. He was gonna be more vulnerable without it, but also quicker, and nothing would happen to him if he was quick about it anyway, right?

Right. 

After a quick glance around to make sure no one was nearby - no humans, but also no birds of prey - he scuttled towards a quiet spot among rocks on the shore, to take a good look at himself in the puddles of seawater. And really, it was well worth the risk: he looked gorgeous with that bracelet on him, if he said so himself: the colored glass beads shone and sparkled in the sun, so captivating that Tamatoa forgot it was supposed to be a  _ quick  _ look.

And he also forgot that he wasn’t the only one attracted by shiny stuff. 

“... And look, it really brings out my eyes! Looking great aren’t I? Huh?” he asked no one in particular, leaning down until his eyes almost touched the surface. Somewhere in the distance, a bird screeched. 

“Yep, I agree!” Tamatoa declared, and grinned down at his reflection. “This kind of stuff is wasted on humans anyway. They’re never gonna look this good, are they?”

"Kaw! Kaw!"

“I know, right? And besides-- GAH!”

Tamatoa threw himself on the side just on time: the next moment a thin, sharp beak hit the spot where he had been standing a moment earlier, breaking the stillness of the puddle. The bird looked up, tilted its head, and tried to strike again. “Kaw!”

Okay, so  _ maybe  _ he shouldn’t have ditched the shell.

“No! Hey!” Tamatoa shrieked, pincers held up as a pathetic shield, and was just able to dodge the next strike, burrowing under the tiny space between a large rock and the sand. “Go away!”

“KAW!”

_ They’ll pull you out of the shell, crack you open and-- _

“NO! LEAVE ME ALONE!”

Far from leaving, the bird just began trying to peck at him through the opening, to get him out, and all Tamatoa could do was lashing out with his pincers, which barely scratched the beak’s surface. If anything, it just seemed to make it angrier. 

_ Dig in the sand I gotta dig in the sand maybe it will stop trying if I-- _

Tamatoa’s panicked thoughts were cut off by a sudden, powerful pull. Had he had more than a split second to process what was happening, he’d have realized that the bird had caught one of the beads of the bracelet around his neck; but he didn’t, and all he knew was that a moment later he was being flung through the air, landing hard on his back in the sand along with several beads from the broken bracelet. 

“Ow! OW!” he yelped, reaching up to cover his head with his pinces just a moment too late to keep two of the falling beads from hitting him right between his eyestalks in quick succession. “Hey! That was min--”

A shadow fell over him, the heat of the sun suddenly gone, and he blinked up to see the bird’s red eyes fixed straight on him. It stared at him for a few moments, and tilted its head. 

“Kaw?”

“... _ Eeeeh. _ L-look, come to think about it, if you want the shiny stuff--”

“Kaw!”

In the story he’d tell his Gran later, Tamatoa had yelled back and struck out with his pincers, very nearly taking out that beast’s eye and scarring its beak. In truth, he shrieked and covered his head, all legs folding to protect his underside, eyes squeezing shut while waiting for pain that… never happened. In its place came more screeching, the sound of wings and a sudden gust of air lifting the sand all around him.

“Kaw! Kaw!”

“... Huh?”

Tamatoa let one eyestalk poke through his pincers to take a look. The bird was gone, scared away by something much bigger, something that was walking straight towards him. 

A human.

With a yelp, Tamatoa managed to get himself back upright and immediately hid under the rock again, with only his eyes peeking out. The human - a human female - gave no sign to have seen him, or the bird, or the shining beads still in the sand. She walked past the rock slowly, without breaking her stride, a tiny white bundle in her arms. That wasn’t what caught Tamatoa’s attention, however: what got him to leave the hiding spot under the rock was the shine of the thin golden chain around her ankle. A  _ very  _ thin one: a snip of his pincers would be enough to have it, he was sure of it.

Of course it was a bad idea. Way too dangerous, and he’d had enough dangers for one day. He should pick up the beads he could, get back in his shell, and go _ home.  _ He really should.

But that thing was just so  _ shiny _ …!

He looked at the beads. He looked at the bird’s prints on the sand. He shot a glance towards the spot where he had left his shell. Then he looked back at the woman, walking slowly along the beach with that tiny bundle in her arms, and at the shiny golden chain at her ankle.

… Ah well. It had been a crappy day, so he may as well get something worthwhile out of it. Tamatoa shrugged, kicked a glass bead aside, and went after her.

* * *

A baby. The thing in the blanket was a  _ human baby.  _

Tamatoa had never seen one up close, and gods was that ugly - a squishy-looking thing with stubby limbs and grayish… huh. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure human babies were supposed to look  _ gray. _ Also, hadn’t his Gran said they would wail and kick and scream all the time? As the woman leaned him down on the sand and opened the blanket to reveal him, he did none of those things: it stayed limp, eyes shut like he was sleeping or… or…

_ … Oh. _

The realization hit Tamatoa just as the woman placed the motionless body on a small piece of driftwood. Maybe she was about to eat him now? That was what his Gran would do if he died, because she hated letting things go to waste. It had been the same with his Ma: if they hadn’t eaten her someone else would have, and there was no point in letting the chance of a filling meal just pass them by. 

But this was a human, and his Gran had also told him that humans did weird things, like burying their dead or throwing them in the sea instead of eating them. A huge waste, she had said, and Tamatoa had to agree. Why would anybody do something like that, letting worms or fish have it all instead?

His question stayed without an answer: only moments later, the human female began making an odd sort of humming noise. It wasn’t quite a song, because there were no _ words, _ but there was definitely some kind of melody there, and it actually seemed quite sad - enough to make him forget about the shiny golden chain for a moment. 

He stared in morbid fascination as she reached to take a pin out of her hair, letting it fall down her shoulders. She settled the pin in the sand, and that  _ definitely  _ caught Tamatoa’s attention - because it was made of gold, too, bigger and shinier than the chain… and left entirely unguarded.

Well. Finders keepers, right?

He moved quickly, scuttling closer while the human’s attention was entirely taken by the dead baby, grabbed the pin - it was so pretty, with a few tiny gems in it as well! - and immediately went back to his hiding place. After that he really,  _ really  _ should go back to his shell and then home, but a sudden gleam caught his eye, and he turned to look again. 

She had a knife in her hand, its blade catching the rays of the dying sun. Tamatoa froze, staring at the knife and thinking that maybe she had spotted him - that she’d take back the pin before she cracked him open and ate him - but, moments later, it became clear that she had not seen him. Before his perplexed gaze, she began using it to cut her own hair. 

That was… weird. Tamatoa frowned in confusion and kept staring, his eyestalks the only thing poking out of his hiding place. He watched as the woman wrapped her hair around the child and knotted it, still humming that wordless, sad tune. Watched as she placed him in the water, driftwood and all, and pushed him out at sea. Watched along with her as the sea took the baby further and further away - and then winced when she abruptly turned, hand on her mouth, and almost ran back the way she came. 

She did not pause, didn’t even try to find her hairpin, like she had forgotten it existed. Tamatoa stared at her retreating back until she was gone from sight, not really sure what he should think, his prize almost forgotten in his pincers. He was finally snapped out of it by a sound that seemed to be coming from the ocean, distant and weak but still recognizable.

Wailing.

… Wait, what? The baby  _ had  _ been dead, right?

Tamatoa turned to look, but there was nothing for him to see: there was something shifting in the ocean, like an odd wave, and the piece of driftwood was carried away, the cries fading. If there had been any cries at all, really. Maybe he was just hearing things - it had been a long day and, come to think of it, he really should head back. 

His Gran was going to give him the scolding of a lifetime but, as he stared down at the shiniest prize he’d ever managed to get his pincers on until then, Tamatoa was pretty sure it had been all well worth it.


	2. Lalotai

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, Pilifeai is a character who appears in [this book](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28963886-the-story-of-moana) as part of a series of tales - so, not mine. I just had fun imagining he'd crossed paths with Maui and Tamatoa. (Also, someone came up with a character design for him based on the book's description, and you can see it [here](http://pengychan.tumblr.com/post/156371997615/are-there-any-pictures-of-pilifeai-in-the-book-ir)!)
> 
> Tamatoa getting his treasure stolen by other monsters is also something that happened in that novelization, and I decided to have it happening here as well. Because of reasons.

Tamatoa wasn’t _supposed_ to get that far from the shore.

And at first it had looked like he wouldn’t need to, because the shipwreck was very close to an island; he could easily get there, spend a few hours collecting all that was left in it worth taking, and then go back to the surface as soon as he felt the need to breathe again. Easy.

Except that the ship had started losing cargo before it sank. Except there was a long line of shiny stuff that stretched in the sand towards the open ocean. Except he had followed it, picking up everything of value he saw on the way. Except that now he was much further away from the shore.

Except that he couldn’t tell where the shore was anymore, he needed to get to the surface to _breathe_ and he couldn’t swim upwards _._

_All right, all right. Keep calm. It’s fine. I… saw that rock. That rock is totally familiar. I must have come this way, right? Right?_

Wrong.

The need to breathe growing more urgent, Tamatoa clutched the trinkets tighter and tried not to panic. He closed his eyes, counted to ten, then opened them again.

And panicked.

“Hey! HEY! Anybody here? I NEED DIRECTIONS!”

Water caused his words to come up as a gurgling mess, and there was no answer: only a few fish swimming in the distance, and something that looked much like thick rope moving in the sand like… like… wait, was that a fishing line?

_If they catch you they’ll pull you out of the shell, crack you open and eat you up._

That was not a possibility anymore, and it would never be again: Tamatoa had grown to be roughly the size of three humans by then, hardened his own shell enough to protect him from any of their weapons and had pincers powerful enough to cut a grown man’s spine in two if he needed to. Still, a fishing line still spelled bad news to him, and he immediately backtracked; too little, and too late. The fishing line was suddenly pulled upwards, and _something_ hooked itself beneath Tamatoa’s carapace, pulling him up with it.

“No! HEY!”

His protests were useless, and all he could do was clutching the treasures he had collected as he was pulled upward at incredible speed, making him wonder for just a moment what kind of being could pull him up so easily through water, from so far below and so quickly.

Then he broke through the surface, and all he could focus on was _breathing._

“... Huh. Didn’t see this coming.”

Still wheezing, Tamatoa blinked the water out of his eyes and looked ahead to see… a human. Bigger than most humans, but still smaller than himself, and yet he seemed to be the one who had pulled him up, the fishing line still in his hands. How was that possible? Tamatoa opened his mouth to ask as much, the human frowned and spoke again.

“You’re not a fish,” he said. Tamatoa found himself blinking a couple more times, too confused to even begin feeling insulted for being confused for a fish even for a moment.

“... Very observant,” he replied, gaze shifting on the fishing line. He could easily snap it with his pincers, come to think of it, but that would mean having to let go of his bounty, and… wait, his stuff! Was the human after the shipwreck’s treasures as well? Tamatoa scowled and clutched his prize tighter. “These are mine!” he snapped. If he thought he was going to just let him scoop them up…!

The human barely cast a glance at his shiny collection before shrugging it off. “Whatever,” he said, and pulled him on the boat. Tamatoa landed on the bottom of it with a yelp, causing the boat - larger than most, but not huge - to rock quite a bit. Aside from being thrice the size of a regular human, Tamatoa was also _much_ heavier than any of them. How had that guy managed to _lift_ him? And most of all, why had he?

“What are you doing?”

“You’re welcome.”

“What?”

The human shrugged and went to disengage his hook from beneath Tamatoa’s carapace. It was massive, entirely white and covered in intricate carvings. “For saving you.”

“I didn’t need saving!”

“The way you gasped when I pulled you out says otherwise,” he countered with a grin. “Spent too much time underwater, huh? Sounded like you were drowning.”

“I was not--”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” the human cut him off with a wave of his hand. “We all need help at some point. Well, except me, but still. Glad I could help you, uh… got a name?”

“Tamatoa,” was the cautious reply. The young of his kind were food to humans and, while he would be able to fend off any normal human, it was becoming more and more clear that this one was nowhere near normal.

“Great, cool name. I’m Maui, the shape shifter, demigod of wind and sea. Hero of Men. And crabs, it looks like,” he added, and held up his hand. “Please, please. Don’t clap your hands too hard. It disturbs the fish.”

“I have no hands,” Tamatoa pointed out, but he did approach, after leaving his bounty safe in a corner of the boat. Of course, he made sure to keep standing between it and that Maui. Just in case. “So, wait. A demigod?” he asked, taking a better look. He looked like a regular human, if a big one. There were some tattoos across his torso, and… wait, had one of them just moved?

“The best around!” Maui confirmed, throwing the huge hook back into the ocean. “Did you think a human would have been able to pull you up?”

Well, that was a fair point. Tamatoa settled down, eyestalks peering overboard. “And what are you doing here?”

“Fishing, what else?” Maui replied, and leaned against the side of the boat with the fishing line in his hand. “Off to catch the biggest fish ever caught, for a couple of villages that are having a bit of trouble finding decent food. That’s why I’m the Hero of men. And women. All. No worries, I’ll give you a lift ashore once I’ve caught the biggest fish ever. I’ve got to say you’re a long way from home.”

“Home?” Tamatoa repeated, frowning. How would he know where he lived? His confusion had to show, for Maui went on.

“I assume you’re from Lalotai. Aren’t you? I’ve never seen one of your kind outside that place,” he added, tilting his head on one side. “And even there, you’re pretty rare.”

Tamatoa had no memory of Lalotai, but he knew that was where he came from. It wasn’t a safe place for anybody to rear their young, Gran had explained, and Ma’s whole clutch of eggs had been eaten except for two - his own, and one that had never hatched. Shortly after that his mother and grandmother had left it with him still in his larval state, to find someplace safer to be. Both had planned to return once he was big enough to fend for himself, but neither had in the end due to, well. Dying. Bit of a shame, since Gran seemed so nostalgic of it, but ah well. At least she hadn’t gone to waste.

Tamatoa himself had never returned, and the fact he didn’t know the way may have something to do with it. He sort of liked were he was, anyway - but now Maui was making him curious.

“I’ve never been in Lalotai. Have you?”

“Oh, of course! Plenty of times.”

“What is it like?”

Maui shrugged, scratching his cheek. “That kinda depends on who you ask. Some of the folks in there make for a nice challenge. Big as whales - would gobble you down without even having to chew you, which would kinda make your shell useless. Tried to do the same for me, but I’m a tough one. There was this one time…”

* * *

Lalotai was not a very social place.

Rife with monsters as it was, interaction was scarce. When it _did_ happen, it was usually over dinner - meaning that at least one of the parties involved would become the main course of the other’s meal.

It wasn’t something Tamatoa had ever really taken part to. He was far too big and strong to worry any of the monsters in Lalotai could pose a threat to him - so no one had ever bothered trying to taste him, with the exception of a giant octopus in his early days there who had since had to make do with only three tentacles - and, as far as he was concerned, fish made for a better meal. Easy to get, too: being shiny was all he had to do, and it just so happened to be what he did best. That, and singing.

But now, to be honest, he was getting tired of singing to the void. It would have been nice to have at least some public to appreciate his voice and shiny carapace, and possibly to help him back upright. He was starting to feel lightheaded.

“Hey! A little help here? I just need a push!”

Once again, there was no reply… or almost. Something did reach him - a skittering sort of sound. Tamatoa blinked, and glanced around to see a few shadowy figures approaching - some of the inhabitants of Lalotai, all of them on the small side. Well, from his perspective, anyway. No threat to him there. He let out a snort.

“About time you guys showed up! C’mon, give me a shove and-- hey! HEY! WHAT ARE YOU--”

He had no time to say anything else before they were all around him, a whole swarm of them he hadn’t even seen approaching, and it wasn’t to help him up: under his horrified eyes, they began picking up all of the shinies that had fallen off his shell in the impact - and began reaching _beneath_ it for the ones still attached to it.

“NO! STOP! THAT’S MINE!”

He tried to stand upright, tried to lash out of them, tried to twist around so he could crush them with his sheer weight and maybe he managed to kick off a handful of them - but stuck on his back as he was, there was no stopping them: squirming and yelling and kicking useless in the air was about all he could do.

It had taken over two thousand years for him to collect his treasure. It took less than a minute for it to be gone alone with the swarm, leaving him alone once again, unable to do anything but curse at them and uselessly call out for help in the same breath.

It’s wasn’t until later, when a low hiss reached him, that he realized that maybe he shouldn’t have made all that noise after all. When you’re trapped on your back and entirely vulnerable in the middle of Lalotai, advertising your presence may not be advisable.

Sooner or later, something big might show for dinner.

* * *

_“Screeaaw!”_

Maui let out another screech and let himself drop down towards the sea - _down down down,_ until the could see the fish swimming under the surface - and then opened his wings, flying over the surface and then raising back to the sky in one smooth swoop.

Gods, he had _missed_ this.

With a few more flaps of his powerful wings, Maui lifted himself high up in the sky and surveyed his handiwork. The islands he had pulled out of the sea with his brand new hook dotted the deep blue ocean, ready for Moana and her people to find and explore. Oh, she was gonna love them. He’d better be back from time to time, just to make sure he got to see the look on their faces when they reached them.

Or maybe he could go fishing. That had been his first idea, really, but then he had started pulling up island after island instead, and had gotten all caught up with that. He should just find a nice spot and…

His eyes, wonderfully sharp in his giant hawk form, suddenly caught something in the distance, very far away: the spire that stood at the entrance to Lalotai. It wasn’t quite enough to sour his mood, but it did make him frown.

When he had left that place last time, only days earlier, he had been… probably at his lowest for quite some time. He had finally held his hook again, only to find that he was unable to use it properly. He had been weak. He had been beaten. He had been thrown around and taunted mercilessly and very nearly eaten.

 _But now I’m back,_ he reasoned. _I really am back._

After one more moment of thought - not much, but thinking had never been Maui’s favorite pastime - he decided that fishing could wait, after all. There were other ways to put his fishhook to use.

A rematch, just to name one.

* * *

When he first heard the hiss, Tamatoa assumed it was from one of the geysers. When it came closer, he _hoped_ it was.

Then someone spoke, and he came to the conclusion that was really not his week.

“Well, well. What a surprise,” a raspy voice said somewhere behind him. “Looks like what they say is true. The great Tamatoa, bested by a human.”

“ _And_ a demigod,” Tamatoa snapped, glancing around to figure out who was talking. That still looked bad, but not _as_ bad as being bested by _just_ a human. Sure, Maui had been very far from peak condition - basically helpless - but that wasn’t a detail he _had_ to reveal, was it? “And you know, I’d have liked to see you--” he added, only to trail off when his eyes finally found his interlocutor - whom, come to think of it, maybe he’d have preferred not to see at all.

Not that he saw him all in one glance. At first, all he could see were blood red scales, covering a tail that just _happened_ to be attached to a giant lizard measuring, snout to tail, something like sixty feet.

_Oh. Great. This guy._

“Pilifeai?” Tamatoa said, then he found himself grinning, the stab of annoyance turning to amusement. “Hah! Didn’t think you were still alive! What hole have you been hiding into for the past… huh. How long has it been again? A thousand years? Two thousand?”

The lizard’s yellow eyes flashes with anger. “One thousand eight hundred and five years, ten months and eighteen days,” he hissed, causing Tamatoa to give him a thoroughly unimpressed look.

“... Counting days? You haven’t been very busy, I take it,” he said, ficking an antennae at the giant lizard - who, in turn, didn’t seem to be especially bothered.

“Neither have you, from what I’ve heard,” Pilifeai countered, and smiled. Teeth the size of a human arm and sharp as obsidian gleamed in the dim light. “In your lair day in and day out, counting the shiny trinkets you’ve scavenged like a good little bottom-feeder.”

The mention of his stolen treasure was a blow, but being called that was worse. Tamatoa bristled and snapped his claws in the empty air, wishing he could get upright and get them on that insufferable reptile. “Call me that again and I’ll--”

“Yell at me? Oooh, I’m terrified,” was the dry reply.

“How about I call _you_ that?”

There was a movement that looked much like a shrug. “Go right ahead. I know _precisely_ what I am. You, on the other hand, never wanted to admit it. Only that now your treasure is gone, isn’t it, _bottom-feeder_ ?” Pilifeai sneered, circling him and forcing Tamatoa to move his eyestalks frantically to keep track of his movements. “All gone, even what you had back in the lair. Maaaybe you have a few trinkets left in the middle of your shell, where they couldn’t reach, but it’s not enough to hide the _ugly_ truth, is it?” he asked, and grinned, all fangs bared. “In the end, you’re just a crab. Not much to look at.”

“Try saying that _again_ to my face and--”

“I _am_ saying that to your face, you dense crustacean,” Pilifeai snorted, and grinned again. “But don’t be so sour. You know what they say: it’s not what you look like that matters…”

“That’s a load of barnacles and--”

“... It’s what you taste like that’s really important.”

… Ah.

Well.

Now that could be a problem.

“H-HAH! I’d like to see you try! Last time we had a _disagreement,_ if you’d like to call it that, I--”

“Last time we had a disagreement you were not stuck on your back.”

“... That does put things in a different perspective.”

“Thanks. Now, how about we spare what’s left of your dignity and get this over wit--”

“Because I’m upside down! Hah! Get it?”

Pilifeai stared. He blinked. He tilted his head on one side. “What?”

Tamatoa rolled his eyes, holding up his claws as though in surrender. “Upside down!” he repeated, waving both pincers. “I see things from a different perspective! Literally!”

Silence.

“It was a pun? Hello?”

More silence.

“... You’re the worst public I’ve ever had,” Tamatoa huffed, crossing his claws.

There was a snarl, and Pilifeai stepped closer. The ground trembled under his steps. “I’m not your _public,_ you hopeless imbecile! I am a predator and now you’re my prey!” he snarled, and bared his fangs once again. Admittedly, they were impressive… and probably strong enough to break through the underside of his carapace. Or bite his head clean off.

 _If they catch you,_ Gran’s voice echoed somewhere in the back of his mind, _they’ll pull you out of the shell, crack you open and eat you up._

_Thanks, Gran. Not helping. As usual._

“As I was saying,” Pilifeai was going on, “if you just submit I’ll make it quick and--” he trailed off and stepped back when Tamatoa lifted his claws and snapped them shut, dangerously close to his snout. He glared, and Tamatoa glared right back.

All right, things were looking bad - _real_ bad - but if that overgrown lizard thought he was going to let himself become his main course without a fight he was so, so mistaken. “You can regrow your tail, but can you regrow your head? Hmm? Let’s find ou--”

He didn’t get to finish what, in his not-so-humble opinion, was a seriously cool line: the next moment Pilifeai let out a hiss and moved in for the kill, maw wide open and teeth glistening. For a moment it looked like something else from long, long ago: a thin, sharp beak. Only that this time no human would stroll by and stop it, so there was only one thing for him to do.

Tamatoa lifted his pincers over his head and shrieked.

* * *

“CHEE-HOO!”

Maui had to admit the descent to Lalotai was a lot more fun when he went down as a giant hawk. Down, down, down at breakneck speed - only to turn himself into a shark with a flick of his hook a moment before hitting the water. That, too, was a whole lot better than going into the vortex in his human form: the pull of the water worked for him and not against him as he dove down down, past the vortex, past the water… and finally inside Lalotai.

_“Chee-hoo!”_

With another cry, Maui turned back into a hawk, flew straight down and then took his human moments before landing in a crouch, fishhook held tightly in his right fist. “IT’S MAUI TIME!”

“... Wha--?”

“Huh?”

All right, now that wasn’t _precisely_ the sight he had expected to find. For one, he hadn’t thought he’d find Tamatoa precisely in the same spot he had left him days ago, stuck on his back. Second, he hadn’t expected to find him with his claws over his head to protect himself from some kind of giant lizard that… actually looked kinda familiar, didn’t it?

“... Pilifeai?” Maui said, lowering his hook, and laughed. Really, _Pilifeai_ of all monsters? And there he thought he had gone and died someplace far away after getting his tail kicked by spirits for the final time! “HAH! Seriously? You’re still alive?”

“That’s what I said,” Tamatoa muttered, one eye poking out from under his claws. Pilifeai just hissed. Maui ignored them both.

“How long have you been hiding away, you overgrown lizard?” he asked, leaning on his hook. “Two thousand years?”

“That is _also_ what I said,” Tamatoa pointed out, finally lowering his claws. “And he’s been counting the days,” he added, causing Maui to blink and turn to him.

“What, seriously?”

“Honest! And then he said--” Tamatoa  began, only to trail off and scowl. “Wait a minute, that’s not-- what are _you_ doing here?”

Maui shrugged. “Came here to kick your shell, but it looks like somebody else is already on to it.”

“Well, I don’t need your help!”

Maui raised an eyebrow. “... When did I say I was going to help you?”

Tamatoa stared. Maui stared. Tamatoa opened his mouth. Maui’s eyebrow went higher. Tamatoa closed his mouth without saying anything and turned with a huff. On Maui’s chest, Mini Maui marked a point for him; beside him, Mini Moana shook her head and pressed a hand against her face.

“Unless you were saying you _need_ my help…” Maui spoke again, starting to grin. Now that would be perfect: it would get under Tamatoa’s skin way more than just being thrown around a bit. Imagine that - forcing him to admit he owed him his life. He’d never live it down.

And then he’d _also_ throw him around a bit for good measure.

“Wha-- NO! I _literally_ just said I don’t need your help!”

“You don’t look in the position to refuse. You can’t even get up, can you?”

“I can! I was just… I was resting! It’s a tiring job, being drop dead gorgeous all the time!”

“Really? ‘Cause it looks like the ‘dropping dead’ part is just about the only thing you’re getting ri--”

_“Excuse me.”_

Pilifeai’s snarl cut off Tamatoa’s protest, and caused them both turn back to him. The massive lizard stood rigid, glaring death at Maui with such intensity that he half-expected to see smoke rise from his nostrils or something like it.

“Oh, sorry,” Maui said smoothly. “Forgot you were there.”

“He didn’t,” Tamatoa pointed out. “We were just ignoring you.”

“... You really don’t do subtle, do you, Crabcake?”

“That wasn’t subtle at all. I was just pointing it out for the dumb lizard here, in case it went over his head like most things do.”

With a snarl, Pilifeai turned to glare at him. “You know this dumb lizard can hear you, don’t you?”

“Oh, and here I thought I was being _subtle,_ ” Tamatoa muttered, making quotation marks in the air with his claws. Pilifeai’s yellow eyes narrowed into slits of pure malevolence.

“Very well. I was about to make it quick. But perhaps I’ll rip off another limb or two from you as an appetizer first…”

Crabs couldn’t grow pale, of course, but Maui was pretty sure Tamatoa would have done precisely that if he could. “H-hey, now, can’t we talk this over?” he croaked. Pilifeai just licked his lips, and Tamatoa’s eyes turned to Maui, who smiled and waved.

“As I think you said a few days ago, _c'est la vie_.”

Tamatoa seemed about to say something, but someone else got there first. Pilifeai.

“... Aren’t you going to try stopping me?” he asked, glancing at Maui. He shrugged.

“Nope. Bon appétit.”

The giant lizard’s scowl turned into obvious confusion, eyes moving from Tamatoa to Maui and then back. “Weren’t the two of you buddies? Have I missed something?”

“He started it!” Maui and Tamatoa exclaimed precisely at the same time, pointing at each other with hook and claw. Maui glared at him before turning back to Pilifeai. “Okay, okay. I know it’s confusing. I mean, you get distracted for a couple thousand years and--”

“One thousand eight hundred and five years, ten months and eighteen days.”

“See?” Tamatoa piped in. “He _did_ count the days!”

“... But yes, you did  miss out a few things. Bottom line is, Crabcake and I haven’t been on friendly terms for a while. The leg he’s missing? My handiwork.”

Tamatoa bristled, snapping his claws in the air. “You always had to take everything too far!”

“I _told you_ that attacking humans was the dealbreaker, but would you listen? _Nooo,_ you’d just follow anything that glittered, no matter what you stepped onto on the way,” Maui snarled, anger flaring up once again. His grip on the hook tightened, and he lifted it to point it at Tamatoa like an accusing finger. He failed to notice how Pilifeai’s yellow eyes moved quickly from him to Tamatoa and then back, like they had just begun speaking in another language he couldn’t make sense of. “Robbing shipwrecks was one thing, but _causing_ them? Raiding villages? Not on my watch! You had been warned, several times!”

“What, getting mad over _that_ again? It’s been thousands of years!”

“You tried to eat Moana _last week_!”

“... Who?”

“Moana!”

“You mean the human with the skinny little legs?”

“Yes.”

“The one who made a fake Heart of Te Fiti to distract me before I ate you?”

“Yes, that--”

“The one who had to save your life by dragging you away when you were too weak to even run--”

“YES, _that_ Moana,” Maui snapped. Very slowly, Mini Maui scored one point for Tamatoa and then shrugged apologetically when Maui shot him a glare. Mini Moana snickered. “The _point_ is, you tried to eat her--”

“She had come into my lair, completely uninvited--”

“... And _then_ you tried to eat _me_!”

Tamatoa rolled his eyes. “Look, I ate my grandma and my own leg. Don’t go thinking that makes _you_ special.”

Maui opened his mouth to snap back, but found himself blinking as what he had just heard sank in. “... Wait. You ate _your own leg_ after I ripped it off?” he asked

Tamatoa shrugged, or at least that was what it looked like. Hard to tell, especially on an upside down giant crab. “What, was I supposed to waste it?”

_“Seriously?”_

“And _anyway,_ I’ll have you know that I’m deli-- I mean, no, wait, scratch that,” Tamatoa scrambled to correct himself. “I tasted horrible. Awfully chewy. I’m actually pretty sure I’m poisonous. Heard that, Pili-- huh. Hey? Pilifeai? Where are you going?”

Maui turned to see that the giant lizard had turned his back to them and was walking away in silence, huge tail slithering across the ground like a snake. “Well away from you,” Pilifeai replied, barely glancing back over his shoulder. “I don’t know what issues you’ve got, but it’s serious and _I_ know better than getting involved.”

“But--”

“Get _help._ Or kill each other, I don’t care. Pilifeai out,” the lizard snapped, and disappeared behind a boulder.

For several moments, both Maui and Tamatoa stared at the spot where he’d been standing in silence. They exchanged a quick glance, then looked away again with a scoff. Tamatoa idly snapped his claws. Maui scratched his butt with the handle of his hook.

Well.

Now that was awkward.


	3. Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And Moana is finally in this fic as well. Good thing she is, too, because I'm pretty sure that without her Maui and Tamatoa would just keep squabbling and get absolutely nothing done. You know how the saying goes: if you want something said ask a man, if you want something done ask a woman, but whatever you do _never_ ask a crab.  
>  I may or may not have just made up the last bit.

“Missed again! C’mon, Crabby! This was supposed to be a challenge! What, are you tired? I could do this all day!”

“We _have_ been doing this all day! Can’t you be still for a moment?”

“Sure, and then you want me to paint  target on my face?”

“That would be nice.”

“In your dreams, Crabcake!”

Maui laughed and leapt out of the way just on time to avoid being struck by a pincer barely smaller than himself. It lifted up a lot of sand, which caused Tamatoa to close his eyes and sputter a moment before Maui landed on top of his shell. “Surprise! It’s Maui ti-- whoa!”

Tamatoa spun suddenly and violently, causing Maui to be thrown back. If he’d been holding his fishhook, Maui would have immediately turned into a hawk, but as he had left it propped up against one of the rocks on the shore - their sparring match would have been too unbalanced otherwise - flight was not an option. He fell heavily in the sand, and rolled aside just one moment before a pincer came down on the spot he’d been.

“Got you!”

“Dream on!”

When Tamatoa’s pincer came down again, Maui was ready: he met it halfway, grasping it with both hands, and held his ground. It wasn’t as easy as he tried to make it look like: Tamatoa was _strong,_ and caused part of his legs to sink into the sand as he fought to push back, muscles trembling with effort. But he had to hold on just a little longer, any moment now… any moment...

He didn’t have to wait for long: Tamatoa grinned down at him and, exactly as Maui had expected, he lifted his other pincer to strike him sideways. Only that in doing so he shifted his weight, and gave Maui exactly the opening he needed. With a grin of his own and a triumphant cry, Maui grasped the pincer more firmly, turned and _pulled,_ throwing Tamatoa over his shoulder. He was heavier than before, having grown even bigger through the years since they had first met, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle.

“YAAAHHH!”

“Wha-- HEY!”

Tamatoa let out a cry that sounded much like a yelp when his back hit the sand. He immediately squirmed, legs kicking in the air in the attempt at getting upright again, but Maui knew it was useless: once flipped, Tamatoa was unable to get back up - let alone on a tricky surface like sand. With a cry of triumph, he jumped on Tamatoa’s abdomen, entirely ignoring his ‘oof!’, and grinned, arms crossed. “I win.”

“You cheated!”

“Hey, we said it was brawl without rules! How do you cheat if there aren’t rules to--”

“Fine, _fine._ Let me up!”

“First you’ve got to say I’m amazing.”

“Forget it,” Tamatoa huffed, and threw him off with a swipe of his claw. Maui laughed, rolling on his back on the sand.

“Pout all you want. You know I’m the best,” he said, resting his head down on his folded hands before glancing up. Well, it looked like they had really been sparring all day: the sky was already turning pink and orange, and he could make out some stars starting to appear right left of the peak that dominated the whole island.

Tamatoa had mentioned there was a cave beneath it, inaccessible by land but connected to the sea, and that it was where he’d grown up. Maui had never seen it, but he knew that was where Tamatoa kept the trinkets he collected - including the ones Maui brought him when he dropped by to visit, in the spare time between one heroic deed and the other. “It’s a nice island you’ve got here. Surprised humans are not all over it,” he finally said.

“There used to be some, until a while ago. Then they kind of left,” Tamatoa said, scratching his chin with a pincer. “Don’t know where they went. They left some shiny stuff behind, too.”

“They were probably Wayfinders. That’s what they do.”

“Leave shiny things?”

“Sail away to find other places to be.”

Tamatoa snorted. “Good riddance, anyway. They kept trying to skewer me with their arrows and pointy sticks all the time. To test their courage or something,” he added, making quote marks with his claws. “Good thing they never found out the entrance to my cave, ‘cause none of them could hold their breath for long enough to swim in it. But really, let them see you _one time_ and bam! They have a new stupid Coming of Age tradition to hunt the monster, and you become target practice. Way to make a guy feel welcome, chasing him with sticks. I bet they didn’t do _that_ to you.”

The smile that had been on Maui’s lips immediately died down, and suddenly the twilight lost all of its beauty. He let out a non-committal grunt and sat up. “... Nah. Guess the mortals love me too much, huh?” he said, unable to force any enthusiasm in his voice.

Which, of course, wasn’t lost to Tamatoa. “You, uh. You usually sound happier about it.”

“Do I?”

“And insufferable.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. So, help me up and explain what’s gotten into you?”

Maui sighed, holding his knees up to his chest and focusing on a seashell half-buried in the sand. On his upper back, his tattoo seemed to burn. He usually ignored it - easy to do as he couldn’t see it - but it would always, always be there. “Well,” he finally said slowly. “Before I… I wasn’t born a demigod. Before I was Maui, I was actually--”

“Maui?”

“No, I’m telling you. I wasn’t. I was born--”

“Maui.”

With a sigh, Maui turned back. “Are you going to let me finish _one_ sentence?” he asked. Far from impressed, Tamatoa wriggled his legs.

“Help me up first. I put the sentence in that order for a reason. Help me up _and_ explain what’s gotten into you. I’m getting all lightheaded here.”

Oh. Right.

“Sure. Just a sec…” he said, standing up, and grabbed Tamatoa’s shell with both hands. “One, two… three!”

Tamatoa shifted his weight to his left side, and Maui’s push did the rest: with a big huff, Tamatoa was flipped back upright. “Those were _three_ seconds,” he grumbled before settling down, legs folded beneath him and chin resting on his pincers. “Fine. I’m listening.”

“If you interrupt again, I’ll smite you with my hook.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

“Would you bet on it?”

Tamatoa grunted, conceding the point. “Fine, fine. Won’t talk.”

“Good. I appreciate the effort that being quiet will take you.”

“Look who’s _talking_.”

“Heh.  As I was saying before a _certain someone_ interrupted me, I wasn’t born a demigod…”

* * *

Maui hadn’t expected things to get awkward.

The way he had envisioned it, he would swoop down in Lalotai to find Tamatoa back upright. He’d say something clever to mock him, show off his abilities and… well, he hadn’t been totally sure of what would happen next. Maybe Tamatoa would attack him first - not too likely now that he was powerful again - or cower at his mere sight - much more likely - but, either way, they would fight. And, of course, Maui would come out of it as the winner. The _hero._

Finding Tamatoa stuck on his back about to be eaten by a giant lizard and then proceeding to save him from said lizard by _bantering_ was not how he had expected that whole ‘rematch’ thing to start out.

“You know,” Maui finally spoke, leaning on his hook once and breaking the silence. “Having saved your life and all--”

“You didn’t,” was the dry reply.

“I’m _so_ sorry to twist the knife, but yes. I did. You’d have become Pilifeai’s lunch if I hadn’t showed up, which means--”

“I was doing _perfectly_ fine,” Tamatoa snapped, and began twisting in the clear attempt at pushing himself upright. Maui raised an eyebrow, allowing himself a few moments of silence to watch his fruitless efforts before speaking again.

“... Having saved your life, whether you like it or not, I would expect you to at least say the two magic words.”

Tamatoa grunted turned his left eye stalk to keep glaring at him even as he kept struggling to get up. “Nu-uh. I know what you’re doing and I’m not gonna say it.”

Maui blinked, feigning confusion. “... Say what?”

“Thank you-- no, wait--!”

“You’re welcome!”

“AAAGH!”

As Mini Maui added another point for Maui and gave him a thumbs-up - Mini Moana was covering her mouth with a hand, which did little to hide her snicker - Maui grinned. “Hey, no need to be ashamed. We all need help. Happens to the best of us, let alone to the worst,” he added, grin widening when Tamatoa glared death at him.

“If you’re not going to - _uugh_ \- be useful, how about you leave?”

“How about I stay here and wait until the next big guy comes over for a nice serving of crab meat? Hey, I could even be that guy,” he added, and lifted his hook with a grin. “I’m starving, come to think of it.”

Maui had expected Tamatoa to scream, and at least on that he was not disappointed: with a surprisingly high-pitched and rather undignified shriek, Tamatoa doubled his efforts to roll back upright and, possibly, run off. In doing so he almost, _almost_ made it on one side; not enough for him to get up, but enough for Maui to have a good look at his shell and realize that something was missing. Plenty of things, really.

“Wait, what happened to your trinkets?” Maui asked, frowning. There were still a few shiny things gleaming gold in the very middle of Tamatoa’s shell, but it wasn’t much - nothing compared to the huge amount that was there before. Where had it gone?

_Thud._

The ground shook when Tamatoa heavily fell back down on his back, staring blankly upwards. His legs stopped scrambling and instead curled over his abdomen, as though to protect him from a physical blow. He suddenly looked like he was trying, with very little success, to make himself as small as possible.

“... Is it _all_ gone?” he asked without looking at him, his voice oddly small. Uncomfortably so, really.

“Well,” Maui found himself saying, very slowly, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “Not all of it. Just about, huh. Ninety-eight percent?”

Maui had expected him to scream this time, too. He wasn’t wrong.

"DON'T LOOK AT ME!" Tamatoa screeched, and covered his head with both claws.

“Okay,” Maui said with a shrug, and looked down to glance at the back of his hand.

“I TOLD YOU NOT TO LOOK AT ME!”

“Am not,” Maui replied, taking a closer look at his nails.

“I’M HIDEOUS!”

“I know.”

There was a moment of silence. “... That’s not helping.”

“You said you don’t need my help,” Maui reminded him, still examining his nails.

“They stole my treasure! The other monsters - the tiny sneaking ones!”

Maui shrugged. Again. “Tiny, sneaking and now rich.”

“They had no right! It was my stuff!” Tamatoa added. The more he spoke, the stronger the whiny quality in his voice got. It made Maui grin, but he didn’t look up and focused on the tattoos on his arm instead.

“Hu-uh.”

“I’ve got to get it back! I’ll find them all and take back what’s mine and have them as snacks!”

“Well, good luck.”

Another moment of silence, then Tamatoa huffed. “Can you at least _look_ at me while I’m talking to you?”

“You told me not to look,” Maui pointed out, flexing his bicep. “Besides, why should I look at something hideous while I can stare at these?” he added, and flexed his bicep again, causing the tattoo on his skin to ripple. “Hah! I could do this all day! You know, I can’t really blame you for being inspired by my tattoos. They’re awesome, aren’t they?”

“... Yes. I think my favorite is the one where your mother is _dumping_ you.”

It shouldn’t have stung, not anymore. He should know by now that he had _worth,_ that it didn’t matter at all whether or not the mortals who had put him into the world could see it. The Ocean had seen it; the gods, the mortals and Moana most of all - they all had seen it. It shouldn't hurt, not anymore.

Except that it _did,_ as though Tamatoa’s remark had just poked dormant but still infected wound. It hurt exactly like it had last time. But now there was something different. Now he had his hook and, most of all, he could use it.

And, if the look on Tamatoa’s face the moment Maui glared at him was anything to go by, he was just realizing he had made a huge, huge mistake.

“A-- All right now, wait a sec, maybe that was just a little out of li--”

“CHEE-HOO!”

A flick of the fishhook, a flash of light, and Maui’s giant hawk form darted up, high above, before looking back down at the trapped monster beneath him. Then, after allowing himself a smile coldly, Maui changed again into something else, something that came crashing down on Tamatoa the next moment, giving him no time to even scream.

A whale.

The impact was violent enough to make the ground shake. Maui’s whale form barely felt it, but Tamatoa certainly did: when Maui took his human hide again, standing on his abdomen, Tamatoa was gasping as though all wind had been knocked out of him. He looked up at him, pincers limp on the ground, and tried to wheeze something, but Maui wasn’t in the mood to listen to another word.

“I like you best when you keep your mouth shut,” he snarled, and lifted the hook above his head, ready to bring it down on his head. “You understand _nothing_ about my tattoos - they’re not some _decoration._ It’s who I am, and you know what? I am proud of every single one of them - but even if they were taken away, I would still be _Maui,_ while you can only lie here and _whine._ Since the day the Gods found me cast away like I was nothing, wrapped up in just _hair,_ I’ve achieved--”

“Hair?” Tamatoa wheezed, causing Maui to trail off and blink. That was… an odd thing to remark on, all things considered.

“Well, that too. I mean, I _do_ have great hair if I say so myself, but it’s not really the first achievement I’d-- wait. What is it?”

No answer. Tamatoa stayed perfectly still, eyes staring upwards without seeing anything. Maui frowned and waved his hook in front of them.  “Hey? Hello?”

Still no answer. His eyes didn’t even follow the movement. “Anyone home?”

Silence.

“Aaaall right. What’s gotten into you now? Am I supposed to guess? Because--”

“Hair,” Tamatoa spoke suddenly. His eyes were still staring straight ahead, pupils wide, and his voice sounded oddly distant. “You were wrapped. In. Hair.”

“Yes? As I just said. A bit weird, but--”

“You never told me that.”

“What, was it an important detail?”

Tamatoa didn’t answer. He just rested his head back down on the ground, staring up. For a few moments he remained silent, then he did just about the last thing Maui expected him to do in his current predicament: he began laughing. And laughing. And _laughing._

… All right. Fine. So apparently losing his shiny collection had made the giant crab lose his marbles as well. It was the only explanation Maui could think of - until Tamatoa spoke again, that was it, at which point he decided that his old enemy just _must_ have a death wish.

“You… HAHAH! Thousands of years with abandonment issues! HAHAHAH! And it was for nothing! Man, oh man!” Tamatoa laughed again, reaching up to wipe his eyes with a claw and entirely missing the fury twisting Maui’s features. “All for nothing! This is hilariou-- ow! OUCH!”

His cry was met with a snarl, and Maui used both hands to twist the leg he had grasped harder - a leg from the side that was already missing one. “If you really wanted to get _another_ leg ripped off, you should have just said so right away,” he spat. “I’ll be happy to comply. Now tell me, _what’s so funny_?”

“Yowch! NO! Hey! Stop!”

No sign of amusement now: only dawning panic. Good, Maui thought, and gave the leg another twist. A little more force, and it’d break. “You’ll start making sense right now, or I’ll--”

“SHE DIDN’T ABANDON YOU!” Tamatoa cried out, his voice several octaves higher than usual. “I was there! I WAS THERE! She-- she thought-- please please _please_ don’t do this!”

_She didn’t abandon you!_

Maui let go of Tamatoa’s limb like it has just caught fire in his hands, mind reeling: whatever he had expected to hear, that definitely was _not_ it. As Tamatoa whined over his aching leg, Maui grabbed the hook again and pressed it against his throat.

 _“Explain,”_ he said, his voice a growl. “In a way that makes sense.”

* * *

“Whoa, look!”

“So many trees!”

“I want a coconut!”

“I want two!”

“I want a hundred!”

“Let’s go check it out! Last one to get to the trees is a chicken!”

The calm of water rolling onto white sand was broken with yelling and splashing as children jumped off the boats before they even reached the ground and half-ran half-swam onto the new island. Until that day, none of them had set foot on land outside Motunui: now there they were, rolling into the sand and laughing like they had never before seen it, or rested in the shade of a coconut tree. Everything was so different. Everything was so familiar. Everything felt so right.

_We are voyagers._

“Moana? Aren’t you coming?”

Her mother’s voice snapped her from her thoughts, the dreamy smile that had been spreading on her face turning a bit sheepish. She had heaved the canoe to a stop without thinking, staying behind as all of the others’ larger ones reached the shore. Her people had proved quick to learn - it was in the blood, after all - but she had decided to come along that first true journey in the smaller canoe she had used to sail to Te Fiti, so that she’d be able to go from one boat to the other if anybody was in need of help.

None of them had needed any, except for an overly excited child who had fallen in the water while trying to reach for a turtle. But he had never been in danger of drowning: when Moana had turned her boat to go pick him up, she could have sworn she had seen _something_ beneath the surface. When the boy had claimed a giant manta had kept him afloat, the other children had laughed. Moana had laughed along with them, but for an entirely different reason.

_There is nowhere you could go that I won’t be with you._

“... Moana? Are you smiling at the chicken?”

Oh. Right. Her mother was still talking to her.

“Uh. Sorry, I sort of. Well. What was it again?” she asked. Her parents exchanged a glance before looking back at her.

“Your mother was asking if you’re not coming to shore,” her father said. He had been sailing the largest canoe of all, with most of the children and elderly on it, and he had been doing so like he’d been born to sail. Which was pretty much how it was, really: he had felt a call to the ocean long before Moana was born, after all.

It was good to see him getting such joy out of it, after losing so much to the unforgiving tide.

“I will soon,” Moana said, tilting her  head towards the other end of the island, where an impressive peak rose over the sea. “I’d just like to take a quick look around. It won’t be long,” she added. The truth was that she wasn’t quite ready to walk on land again: she wanted to sail just a bit longer, listen to nothing but the waves and the wind filling her sail. Afterwards, returning to the sounds and voices of her people would be all the sweeter.

“Are you sure? The sun isn’t as high as I’d like for this.”

“I’ll be back before sundown. This island is not too big,” Moana reassured him. “Just, uh… take Heihei with you. I think he’s had enough of the ocean for today,” she added, and picked him up to hand him over to her mother. “And make sure no one eats him.”

_“Bwoook!”_

“I’ll protect your chicken _and_ pig with my life,” Sina declared. At her feet, Pua tilted his head. “You be careful.”

“Of course.”

“Just one thing, Moana,” Tui added, his voice suddenly serious, causing Moana to frown.

“What is it?”

“Stay within the reef.”

Moana stared at him, then raised an eyebrow. As a response, her father laughed. It was something he did often in Motunui, too; his laugh had always been deep and pleasant. But now, after their first true journey together, it sounded different and familiar at the same time.

And it felt just _right._

* * *

“She thought I was _stillborn._ Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes? I mean, that’s what I assumed. You were so quiet and wouldn’t move at all, _I_ thought you were dead, so--”

“How can you be sure it was _me_ you saw that day?” Maui cut him off, stopping mid-stride to look up at him. He’d been pacing back and forth like a caged tiger shark for most of Tamatoa’s tale and, to be honest, he was starting to make the giant crab feel kind of seasick. Being still upside down wasn’t helping.

“Look, I’m just… I’m guessing, all right? I hadn’t thought about it in a _long_ time. I never even thought it could have been _you_ until you brought up the hair thing! You were so sure they had dumped you, I just thought that was it!”

“... I _assumed_ they had,” Maui conceded, his voice a bit quieter.

“See? I thought I had seen some other kid being buried at sea. I hadn’t even watched that closely, anyway - there was this shiny thingie she had left in the sand and--”

“And you _stole_ it from a grieving mother while she buried her child.”

“Hey now, it sounds bad if you put it that way! How about, huh…” Tamatoa paused, reaching up to tap his chin with a pincer. Maui raised and eyebrow, tapping his foot. Finally, Tamatoa let the pincer fall back on the ground. “Fine. It sounds bad however you say it. I guess it wasn’t a very nice thing to do.”

_“You guess?”_

“But it was so _shiny,_ and she had just left it--” Tamatoa began, only to trail off when Maui suddenly pointed the fishhook against him.

“Just _how_ long ago was it?”

“Uuhh…” Tamatoa mumbled, and tried to remember. Keeping track of time wasn’t that easy in the long run, especially since he had spent much of the previous millennia slumbering in his lair and occasionally awakening to feed and admire his treasure. Or himself. “Something like… five thousand years? Give or take a few centuries?”

It fit with the time Maui must have been born, of course. Even if he didn’t already know it, Maui’s expression would have been a dead giveaway. “Five thousand years,” he repeated. “If what you’re saying is true--”

“It is! Do you think I’d _lie_ to you?”

“... Honestly?”

Tamatoa sighed. “All right, all right. Got a point there,” he conceded, lifting his claws in surrender. “I could be making it all up, I guess. But why _would_ I?”

“To keep me from ripping off another of your limbs.”

“... That is another good point.”

Maui scowled and, with a leap, he was back on Tamatoa’s abdomen, hook pressing against his throat. “Just so we are perfectly clear,” he said, his voice low and frighteningly calm. “I will look into this. I have ways to find out whether or not you lied to me. And if I find out you did, I will be back. I will tear away _every single one_ of your limbs and leave you here as monster bait. So this is your last chance, Crabcake. If you lied just say it now, and you’ll make it out of this without anything more than a few blows--”

“I didn’t lie!” Tamatoa protested, his voice a lot higher than he would have wanted it to sound. It made him sound terrified but, honestly, he was. Anyone would had been in his place, with that hook pressed against their throat and Maui talking like that. “Honest! I saw it just as I described, and… and… I can’t be _a hundred percent sure_ it was you, man, give me a break! I just thought… the baby was wrapped in hair, and so were you and the time frame fits, so… so maybe?” he croaked, and winced when Maui’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not lying! I know what I saw and I think it was you! That’s it! That is all! I can’t know it for sure!”

There was another moment of silence then, finally, Maui nodded and the hook was pulled away. “You better not have lied to me, bottom-feeder.”

A flare of anger replaced the fear, and Tamatoa found himself snapping. “Don’t call me that!”

“Why not? Now you don’t even have your gold to hide behind. Once a bottom-feeder, _always_ a bottom-feeder. And if what you say is true, you stole from a woman who was burying her child,” Maui snorted before jumping off him, landing in a crouch. “There are _worse_ things I could call you.”

Tamatoa opened his mouth to protest, but words died in his throat when he realized that Maui was walking off towards the geyser leading to… wait a minute...! “Hey! Help me up!” he called out, kicking his legs in the air. “You can’t leave me like this!”

Maui glanced at him from over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. “Says who?” he asked, but he did stop walking.

“I do!” Tamatoa blurted out. “You know I’m monster food if you leave me like this!”

“I was about to let Pilifeai have you for lunch less than a hour ago. What makes you think anything changed meanwhile?”

“I told you about your mother - or at least I think it was her? Well, anyway! I told you that you were _probably_ not abandoned! That’s a big deal, right?”

Maui turned to fully face him, eyes narrowed. “If it turns out it was actually me.”

“But it’s a possibility to look into and _I_ told you about it!” Tamatoa pointed out. “Just cut me some slack, man! It’s _got_ to count for some-- HEY!” Before he had the time to add anything else, Maui let out a roar and _charged._ Tamatoa screamed and made another frantic attempt at getting up, but there was no chance for him to get away: the next moment something struck him and sent him tumbling across the ground, and then against a rocky cliffside.

The impact was violent enough to leave him breathless for a moment, even though his shell shielded him from any actual harm. He fell heavily, mind reeling to the point it took him a few moments to realize that, this time, he could feel the ground _beneath_ him. For the first time in days, he was back upright. “You could have been _gentler_ about it,” he protested, pulling himself up.

There was no reply. Tamatoa looked around, still slightly dizzy, but he could see no sign of Maui anyway. He had left - and, for the first time since he’d known him, he had done so in silence. Leaving him treasureless, and alone.

And he’d never even told him whether or not he had liked his song.

* * *

The ocean, Moana had come to realize, had a song of its own.

On the surface, it was rolling waves and splashing water. Deep beneath, there was the song of whales. Deepest of all, there were the songs of those who had crossed the sea before her, preserved in the memory of water. All together, they were a harmony Moana would never grow tired to listen. She would just sail her boat in silence and lend her ear to that song, letting a sense of peace pervade--

_“Skreeeeeaw!”_

… Well, so much for the sense of peace. Moana looked up just as the shadow of a giant hawk covered the sun, and found herself grinning, waving at him with the hand still holding the oar. The hawk screeched again before diving down, fast as lighting, only turning back to his human form moments before landing on her boat and making it rock as though hit by a sudden wave.

Not long before - honestly, not even _two weeks_ before - it would have been enough to throw Moana off balance as into the water. Now, she simply shifted her weight without even stepping back, sure-footed as she’d have been on land, and looked up at Maui.

“Well, the hero of men and women is back! Changed your mind about coming to meet my vill--” she began, but trailed off when Maui looked back at her. The look on his face was something she’d only seen once, when he had first realized he was unable to use his hook; for the lack of a better word, he seemed _lost._ “... Maui? Is something wron-- whoa!”

Moana dropped the oar when Maui grabbed her on both sides and lifted her up at her same eye level, as easily as she’d have lifted a twig. “Maybe I was,” he said. “Maybe I _have_ been wrong all along.”

“About what?”

The expression that twisted Maui’s features for a moment was hard to describe, a mixture of wonder and grief, and something not too far away from hope. “About my mother.”

* * *

Just as Pilifeai had said, the part of treasure Tamatoa kept back in his lair - everything shiny he had collected after running out of space on his shell - was gone as well; not a single golden coin or bauble or trinket left. All gone, alone with the sneaking freaks of nature who had certainly stolen it and, by now, certainly left Lalotai. Of course they had: no one would be dumb enough to steal his treasure and then hang around for Tamatoa to get his claws on them.

He should hunt them down, find and _devour_ them before taking back what as his. It was what he’d sworn he’d do. Except that he had no idea where they went. Except that he was so _tired._

Reaching back with one claw, Tamatoa slowly scraped what was left of his treasure off his shell and put it down on the ground to take a look. It was a small pile, and nothing more. Hardly even worth looking at.

 _It’s not enough to hide the ugly truth, is it?,_ Pilifeai’s voice echoed somewhere in the back of his mind. _In the end, you’re just a crab. Not much to look at._

Tamatoa scowled down at the pile, trying to think of a comeback. Pilifeai long since left, but maybe yelling it at his empty lair would help… except that there was _nothing_ he could think of.

_Now you don’t even have your gold to hide behind. Once a bottom-feeder, always a--_

“DON’T CALL ME THAT!” Tamatoa snapped, his voice echoing in the lair, and in his fury he almost brought his claw down on what little was left of his treasure. Almost, become one moment before he did something caught his eye, causing him to go still. Something he recognized, because he knew every single piece of his treasure like the back of his claw, no matter how old and small. And this one piece was _both_ old and small.

A tiny golden hairpin, misshapen and burnished by time.


	4. Deal

“Wakey wakey, Crabcake! Ready to go on an adventure?”

“... Bwuh?”

“Yes! That’s the spirit! Come on!”

Something knocked on his shell, and Tamatoa opened his eyes with a groan. The cave he lived in had no source of light aside from the bioluminescent algae growing on the small seawater pond that connected it to the sea - plus his  _ own _ bioluminescence - so he had to blink a few times before he was able to really see much of anything. Then again, there was no need to really do it: even before he turned his eyestalks to peer over his back, he knew who it was. The voice had been a dead giveaway and really, there was no one else who knew of his cave and would dare to jump on his shell like that.

Standing on his shell, leaning on his hook, Maui grinned at him. “Sorry, are you sleeping?”

“You’re not sorry and no,  _ clearly  _ not anymore,” Tamatoa grumbled, shrugging and causing Maui to jump off his back before he could lose his balance. “How did you get in here?”

“Turned into a shark for the swimming part,” Maui said, and glanced around, throwing the fishhook over his shoulder. Tamatoa winced back, wishing he were more careful when he swung that thing. “Wow. I expected the cave to be big, you know, but not  _ this  _ big. And it was enough for your and your grandmother to stay in?”

“It would be a tight fit now,” Tamatoa muttered through a yawn. He was growing bigger with each passing year and decade and century, but of course his grandmother had been much larger. His kind never stopped growing until death - or so she had told him; he had never met anyone  _ else _ of his kind to confirm or dispute that - and she’d been far older than him. By now he was easily the size of a small ship. “Wouldn’t have been a problem, though. She’d  have thrown me out way earlier than this if she hadn’t kicked it first. Or gone back to Lalotai.”

Hadn’t he been busy yawning some more, he’d have noticed the grin on Maui’s face fading some. “That’s harsh.”

“Naah. I’m a big boy,” Tamatoa waved a claw dismissively before letting his eyestalks inch closer to Maui, not moving an inch from the hole in the rock he was comfortably nestled into. It was too large for him - it had been Gran’s sleeping spot - but that meant he could fit in it comfortably and also keep all of his shiny collection close while he slept. “So. What was it about adventure again?”

Maui’s grin made a triumphant comeback, and he puffed out his chest. “You and I, my friend, are going to achieve something amazing! East from here, in a bottomless pit, there is--”

“Treasure?” Tamatoa asked, his interest piqued, and frowned when Maui shook his head.

“Nope,” he said, causing all of Tamatoa’s interest to instantly evaporate. His antennae went limp.

“... Why did you wake  _ me _ up, then?”

“Don’t you wish days lasted longer?”

“No. More time for me to sleep unless  _ you  _ decide to drop by.”

Maui made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “All right, fine. But humans would like it if days lasted longer, so we’re gonna lasso the sun.”

Tamatoa blinked. “We’re gonna… what?”

“Lasso the sun. He runs way too fast.”

He blinked again. 

“But we’re gonna catch it with a net first,” Maui added. “As in, you are.”

“I’m going to catch the sun with a net,” Tamatoa repeated slowly.

“And then I’ll use my hook to lasso it and slow it down. Yes, I know it’s a flawless plan. No need to cheer too hard.”

“... Have you been drinking fermented coconut milk again?”

“That’s absolutely irrelevant.”

“I’ll take it as a yes.”

“Whatever. Bottom line is, I’m going to slow down the sun - it’s the stuff of legends and I’ll let you be part of it!” Maui laughed and reached to pass an arm around Tamatoa’s neck, squashing his face against one of his eyestalks. “Aren’t you excited?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I’ll take it as a yes.”

“Hey, that was my line to begin with and-- what have you got there?”

Maui laughed again, throwing the pearl up in the air and then catching it again. A really big pearl, too, easily the size of his fist. Where had be been keeping it? “Something nice n’ shiny for my favorite giant crab monster.”

“I am almost positive I’m the  _ only _ giant crab monster you know,” Tamatoa said, but he did keep his eyes glued on the pearl. It gleamed so  _ prettily _ …!

“But you’re also a good friend who’s gonna help me slow down the sun,” Maui said with a shrug, and threw the pearl up at him. Tamatoa caught it with ease, gave it a good look, then grinned.

“... All right. What’s the plan?”

“Plan?”

“You have a plan, right?”

“Oh. Sure. Hahaha! Of course I have a plan. Sort of. Anyway, we’re gonna need rope. Lots of rope, and lots of luck. Say, anyone in particular you’d like to leave your stuff to should anything happen?”

“Huh?”

“Asking hypothetically.”

Tamatoa rolled his eyes. “Maui?”

“Yes.”

“If we die, I’m going to kill you.”

“Pffft. You can try, Crabcake. You can try.”

* * *

“... And I could have  _ tried _ to find them, you know? Back when they could be still alive. If anything to gloat at them, and then if it had all been just a big misunderstanding they would have said something, wouldn’t they? They’d have told me that I was wrong and that they never meant to abandon me, right?”

“Yes. I guess they would have.”

“And what did I do instead? Nothing! I just chickened out, no offense to  _ your _ chicken, and never even tried to look for them. And now…” Maui paused for a moment, arms still lifted as though about to grasp something, then he gave a long sigh and let them drop. “... Now it’s too late. I mean, maybe they did abandon me and the kid Tamatoa saw being buried at sea was someone else, but either way… now I’ll never know,” he added. He sounded more tired than saddened, but it made something in Moana’s chest ache all the same. He wasn’t supposed to sound like that; it just didn’t seem right.

And she didn’t know what she could say to make it better.

With a sigh, she turned her gaze to the ocean. The sun had long since set - she  _ really _ hoped her parents wouldn’t be too worried now - and the moonlight turned the waves to silver around the boat. In the distance, she could barely make out the shapes of a few manta rays that--

Wait. Wait just a moment.

“It’s not too late!” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet and causing Maui to yelp in surprise. 

“Gah! What was  _ that _ about?”

Moana smiled, so wide that it made her cheeks hurt, and grasped her necklace with both hands. “It’s not too late!” she repeated, holding the necklace up. Maui blinked at it. 

“Uh. Yes. It’s.. very pretty?”

… All right, so maybe she hadn’t explained herself all that well.

“I mean, your family!” Moana said, reaching to grab his shoulder to shake him. Well, try to: he didn’t move a single inch, but it was the thought that mattered. “They may be gone, but so is my Grandma, and she came to me! Our ancestors are never really gone. I mean, you should go! You’re the demigod here!”

There was a spark of something that looked much like hope on Maui’s face, but it was gone as quickly as it came. “It’s not so simple. Your grandmother would have known where to find you. She knew  _ you. _ My parents… don’t. They wouldn’t even know I lived - why would they look for me in the land of the living?”

“But we can look for  _ them, _ right?”

Maui blinked at her. “We,” he repeated, and Moana shrugged. 

“Of course I’m not letting you do this on your own. More on point, can we look for them instead? There is an afterlife, so they have to be somewhere! It’s just a matter of finding them!”

Maui laughed. And laughed. And  _ laughed. _

Gradually, Moana’s smile turned into a frown. “What? What did I say that sounded  _ so  _ funny?”

“You think - heh! You think we can just go and waltz into the Underworld?”

“Well, we already were in Lalotai, so…”

“Lalotai doesn’t have Hine-nui-te-pō guarding it,” Maui said with a lopsided grin. “Great woman of the night. Skin of red earth, red eyes, lots of obsidian teeth in places where there  _ shouldn’t  _ be any. No,  _ don’t  _ ask,” he added, lifting a hand as soon as she opened her mouth. “Bottom line is, no one alive gets in. You’re  _ not  _ getting past this one by singing at her.”

“... Well, it worked once…”

“And  _ won’t  _ work again.”

“You don’t know ‘till you try!”

“And if it doesn’t work, we don’t get a second attempt. I’m not dragging you in this with me. And besides,” he added, letting himself drop on his back to look up at the stars, “even if I did get past her, do you have any idea how vast the Underworld is? There are more people who died over the millennia than there are in the world of the living right now. And I don’t even know what she looks like.”

Oh, right. Moana hadn’t even thought of it, but it was true. With a sigh, she sat down as well and let her legs slip into the water. She kicked in it, a bit absentmindedly, and bit her lower lip. It just seemed so… so…

“Unfair,” she finally said, a hand reaching up to her necklace, tracing its shape. “It’s just really  _ unfair. _ There’s got to be a way!”

Maui gave a rumbling chuckle. On his chest, Mini Maui was looking rather dejected. “Heh. Don’t take the whole  _ wayfinder  _ thing too far now, kid. I’ll be fine anyway. I’m a big boy.”

He had a point, she knew that, but at the same time she couldn’t quite let it go: the sheer injustice of it gnawed at her. After so long thinking the worst of his parents, he had been presented with a staggering possibility and couldn’t even speak to them, to find out if it was true. Her hand found her necklace again, and closed around it.

_ There is nowhere you could go that I won't be with you. _

… But how had her grandmother  _ found  _ her? When Moana had been at her lowest point, when she had called for her without realizing it, she had come - but as the tales went, the ancestors who returned would remain close to the island where they had lived, while Moana had been a long way from Motunui, near an island Gramma Tala had never seen in life. And yet she had found her, in the middle of the ocean, as though she had followed a beacon. The heart of Te Fiti, maybe? No, that wasn’t right - it didn’t  _ feel  _ right. But then…?

_ I can’t leave you. _

_ There is nowhere you could go that I won't be with you, _ she had said. Moana closed her eyes, replaying the scene in her mind and trying to ignore the ache in her chest. That was exactly what she had told her, only moments after giving her the heart of Te Fiti and… and…

_ The necklace. _

Moana’s thumb, which had been stroking the shell’s smooth surface, stilled. Her eyes snapped open. “The necklace!”

“... Huh?”

Moana jumped on her feet, causing the boat to rock slightly. “My grandmother! She found me when I called for her, and I think… I think this helped,” she added, holding up the shell once again. “Is that possible? It belonged to her!”

Maui sat up again and scratched his cheek, frowning in thought. “Oh, right. I think someone mentioned something like it once? Can’t remember which god, but hey, it’s been a couple thousands years. I’m almost sure that was it - something about a token belonging to the ancestor, like a beacon in the night, blah blah poetic stuff, for the soul to follo--” he trailed off abruptly, as though someone had just knocked all wind out of him. 

In the dim light of the moon Moana could see his eyes widening in dawning realization. Then he looked up at her again and, slowly, he broke into a grin that mirrored her own. When they spoke, it was precisely at the same time, to say precisely the same thing.

_ “The hairpin.” _

* * *

He ought to destroy it, really. 

It wouldn’t have been much of a loss, all things considered. It had been a pretty, shiny thing once - when he was a drab little thing who made do with colored glass beads because he couldn’t get his pincers on anything better - but now it didn’t even shine anymore, not after so many centuries. It was burnished and brittle and just plain ugly; even the gemstones had lost all of their shine. It wasn’t worth holding onto and really, snapping it in two would be really satisfying: after all, he would be breaking Maui’s stuff.

Not as good as ripping away his leg, but it would do. One snap of his claws, no effort at all, and he’d turn it into find dust. It would be so easy. 

And yet he couldn’t do it. 

It’s still part of my treasure, he reasoned. Part of a very tiny treasure now, one he couldn’t afford lose more of, all things considered. And besides… besides, that hairpin could be useful, after all. He still wasn’t sure how, but there was a nagging voice in the back of his mind - which sounded all the world like his Gran had, fittingly enough - telling him he should keep it, and keep it safe.

_ You never know, Tinytoa.  _

“Quit calling me that,” he grumbled to the empty lair, but he did tuck the hairpin in a tiny gap in his carapace.

Just in case.

* * *

“GIANT HAWK! GIANT HAWK! GIANT HAWK!”

“Seriously, kids? This would be the thirtieth time, I’m getting kind of tired and-- GIANT HAWK! CHEE-HOO!”

The cheering from the children -  _ and _ the adults, really - was almost loud enough to cover the screech Maui’s hawk form let out before flying up in the air, coming down again in a dive before sweeping up again. Moana had seen him doing that plenty of times as he worked to regain control of his own powers and that of his hook, but she had never seen him doing it in front of a crowd. Now that she did, it was clear to her how much he loved it.

And said crowd was loving it just as much.

“Moana?”

Her father’s voice was quiet, and Moana gave an inward sigh, already knowing what what was going to be about. When she turned, he was standing behind her with an arm around her mother’s shoulders, the fire casting deep shadows on their faces. They had been amazed when Maui had showed up along with her, of course, but now all that showed on their faces in the flickering light was worry. 

She had sailed to the horizon and back, and still they feared for her.

“I’ll be fine,” she said before they could add anything else. “Really. Maui helped me restore the heart of Te Fiti, how to sail and wayfinding and… he’s my friend. I want to help.”

Tui and Sina exchanged a glance before looking back at her. “We won’t try to talk you into staying,” her father finally said slowly. “But I could come with you.”

“Our people will need at least one of us to stay,” Moana pointed out. She may be the Chief now, but her father had so much more experience, and the thought of leaving their people on that new island without his guidance didn’t sit right. 

“At least let some of our best men come with you.”

Moana paused for a moment to drink some more coconut water, more to take time to think of something to say than because she was thirsty. She had reassured her parents that the journey to recover a token Maui needed would be short and most of all safe, but of course she could guess it was anything but: the way she had to struggle before convincing Maui that  _ she was coming _ had been enough to tell her that. And she had no intention to put anyone else in danger - but saying as much would reveal her little white lie to her parents.

“You’ll need all the hands you can get here,” she finally said. They had taken some of their best men for the journey, of course, but not all of them, as many had stayed on Motunui to tend to their island. “To explore this whole place, hunt, fish, plant the harvest. I can’t take them away from here for no reason.”

As her father nodded, conceding the point, it was her mother to speak. 

“She is right. Besides, a demigod will be with her. What would be safer--”

“LOOK! SHARK HEAD!” Moana heard Maui yelling, to roaring laughter. Her parents looked behind her at the scene, expressions turning even more concerned. Their eyes flickered back and forth between her and the scene. Moana cringed a bit and decided it would be best  _ not _ to turn and look.

“Also,” she added, maybe just a bit too quickly, “our ancestors will be watching over me.”

* * *

When Moana’s boat left the new island the next day, with no one but her and Maui on board, everyone stayed at the shore to watch them disappear towards the rising sun. Tui and Sina stayed longest, eyes fixed on the horizon as the sky climbed up in the sky. 

“Our people used to know her as Chief Tui’s daughter,” her husband said after a very long silence. “Their children and their children’s children will know me as Chief Moana’s father.”

Sina smiled, and reached to take her husband’s hand. “You should be proud.”

“I couldn’t be prouder,” Tui said. “And I couldn’t be more scared.”

“Of course you are. You may live to be a hundred, see her become a grandmother, and still worry for your child. That’s what parents do,” she said, and sighed. “We set them free into the world, hope for the best, and tend to their pig and chicken until they return,” she added, and looked down.

Only to pause, and frown.

“... Wait. Where  _ are _ they?”

* * *

“A chicken  _ and _ a pig now? Really?”

“Bwooook!”

“They were supposed to stay home with my parents! I had even checked to make sure Hehei wasn’t hiding here-- Pua, no! Come here! Stay! Stay!”

“Hey, at least we’ve got something to eat if things get bad.”

“Maui!”

“Not the chicken, not the chicken! He’s off limits, I know. But the pig looks nice and juicy, so-- hey, wait, why is he looking at me like that?  _ Aaagh! _ Okay! Sorry! I won’t eat you! Make him stop!”

“Oh no. You brought it on yours-- wait, wait, we have to go back! Chicken at sea!”

“All right, but they’re  _ not _ coming inside Lalotai with me.”

“No, of course they’re not coming with us.”

_ “Us?” _

“Of course. I go where you go.”

“There’s no need to - here, got your chicken - come in there with me. I’ll just get in, find out if that bottom-feeder still has the hairpin, maybe clobber him a bit for good measure, and leave. If I get the hairpin, great. If not… we’ll think of where else it might be.”

“And if it turns out to be anywhere in Lalotai - Heihei,  _ no _ \- you’ll just go looking for it leaving me outside with the boat.”

“And the pig. And the chicken. Good company.”

“I’m  _ not _ waiting for you outside. Got to make sure you don’t get hurt too badly.”

“Oh, har har.”

“That was not a joke.”

“Could be the beginning of one, though.”

“What could?”

“All of this really. So, there are a wayfinder, a demigod, a chicken and a pig at sea…”

* * *

There had been times, as the boat soared on the water’s surface and the wind filling her sails whipped at her hair, when Moana had thought that was what flying had to feel like. Now, as Maui dropped her on solid ground, on top of the spire above Lalotai, she could tell it actually was nothing like flying, and  _ thank the gods _ it was not. That had been  _ terrifying. _

“Everything all right? Not gonna puke?” Maui asked as soon as he returned to his human form, sounding all too pleased with himself.

“Swimmingly,” Moana croaked, trying to tell herself two things: that she sounded convincing - she did not - and that the brief flight upwards had still been better than a gruelling climb - she had her doubts. 

Maui chuckled. “Next time I’ll try harder,” he muttered, and threw himself down the opening. Moana sighed, and followed. The drop down wasn’t pleasant, but still better than the terrifying rush upwards, and this time the landing was far better, with Maui catching her before she could hit the ground. “You’re welcome,” he said, setting her down. 

“Most people say that after being thanked, you know.”

“I’m not most people. And you were just about to thank me,” Maui said, then rolled his shoulders, and cracked his neck before he began marching towards Tamatoa’s lair. “Well. Time to go and clobber a giant crab.”

Moana followed, rolling her eyes. Lalotai was no less creepy than it had been before, strange noises echoing everywhere and creatures moving just beyond her field vision, but it was difficult to be afraid with Maui walking beside her, fishhook in hand. She had  _ seen _ what he could do at his best, what he could face. “You were supposed to  _ talk _ with him.”

“He talks better after a good beating. And I talk best after giving one,” Maui pointed out, grinning as the spiralling shell Tamatoa lived into appeared before them. 

“I’m just  _ saying _ that maybe we can do this without having to clobber anybody,” Moana said quickly as they reached it. She had  _ almost _ no doubt that Maui would win the fight, but that was no reason to risk it. The smaller creatures inhabiting Lalotai were one thing; then giant crab another entirely. She and Maui had already come uncomfortably close to becoming his dinner. “Maybe you can just, uh, talk it out. You said you didn’t fight last time, and you did help him up. There’s no need to make him angry.”

Maui rolled his eyes. “He’s not good at talking about anything but himself,” he muttered, but he did lower the hook as they approached the lair, and she supposed it was something. Moana nodded at him, and peered inside through the hole Tamatoa had broken in its wall when he had tried to chase them down. 

Last time she had been there, the lair’s floor was covered in glittering treasure - enough for her not to realize that much of it was, in fact, the top of Tamatoa’s shell. Now, however, the treasure seemed to be entirely gone; the ground was bare… and so was Tamatoa’s shell.

He was resting in the middle of the lair, much like he had last time, except that of course he was now in plain view. It looked like he was sleeping, head resting on his claws and… no, wait, that wasn’t it. Moana frowned, squinting to see better, and caught a glimpse of something gleaming. Gold, she realized: Tamatoa had placed what little of his treasure he had left before him, encircled it with his claws, and was now using it as a pillow. 

_ He’s making sure no one can steal what’s left. _

There was something rather sad about it, and maybe Moana would have felt some small -  _ very  _ small; he  _ had  _ tried to eat her, after all - measure of pity, if given enough time to. But Maui didn’t seem to be up to waste even a moment, and hit the ground with his hook with enough strength to make it shake, and Moana almost lost her balance.

“Hey, Crabcake! Wakey wakey!”

“EEK!”

With a shriek that sounded nothing like the kind of noise a being that huge was supposed to make, Tamatoa lifted his head, eyes snapping open. Rather than standing, however, he seemed to flatten himself on the ground; when his eyes found her and Maui, he immediately pulled what was left of his treasure closer. 

“You can’t have it! It’s mine!” he all but whined. “Human! Tell him he can’t have my things!”

Moana blinked. “... Huh. Look, we’re just looking for one little thing, and we’ll let you keep the res--”

“No! It’s all your fault I lost everything else! This wouldn’t have happened if you just stayed still and let me eat you!”

“... Am I supposed to apologize now?”

“Well, it  _ would  _ be a start!” Tamatoa said with a huff. “What did you  _ think  _ was gonna happen? You’ve got a  _ monster  _ taking a nap in his home in the _ realm of monsters, _ minding his own business, when a heap of protein on skinny legs comes waddling in--”

“Wait a moment now, I wasn’t  _ waddling  _ and my legs are not that--”

“... Making an awful lot lot of noise--”

“Fine, look,  _ that  _ was Maui’s idea, and--”

“... To serve as a diversion for the guy who ripped off my leg to steal my stuff!”

“Hey now, that hook was Maui’s to begin with, and you stole--”

“I  _ found  _ it. Not my fault he got his butt kicked by Te Ka and dropped it!”

“You knew it was Maui’s!”

“Yeah, and? Was I supposed to go looking for him and give it back all nicely after he _ ripped off  _ my leg? I don’t think so! It found it, and so it was mine! I didn’t steal any-- whoa!” he trailed off with a yelp when Maui struck the ground again with his fishhook, causing the entire lair to shake again.

“But you  _ did  _ steal something once, didn’t you?” he said, glaring daggers at Tamatoa. “And from a grieving mother no less. A golden hairpin. And I want it back.”

Tamatoa glared back, then huffed. “Well, tough luck. It’s gone. You  _ may _ not have noticed, but most of my treasure was stolen.”

“Most of, yes. Not  _ all  _ of it,” Maui shot back, and marched straight at him. “And this is as good of a place to start looking as any. Let me see what you’ve got.”

“Hey! You can’t just come in here--”

Maui lifted his fishhook, not breaking his stride. Tamatoa seemed to shrink. “... Oh. You can,” he mumbled, and stepped back - very, very reluctantly. “All right, I’ll let you just this once. But if I see you taking anything-- hey! Come on! Don’t throw my stuff around! Please?”

Maui entirely ignored him, and kept rummaging among the pile of treasure with no regard for any of it. Tamatoa stared miserably at the scene, then turned his gaze back on Moana, who was still lingering near the entrance. 

_ If he lunges now, Maui might not be able to stop him on time. _

The thought was sudden as it was chilling, and she suddenly wished she had waited outside, after all. Not that being outside on her own would have been much safer, but at the moment it did feel like it. She opened her mouth to say something along the lines of ‘I’ll be waiting outside’, but Tamatoa spoke first.

“So, did you like the song?”

_ Wait. What? _

“Wait. What?”

Tamatoa frowned, eyestalks inching closer. “The song! You know, the whole big musical number? Me talking about myself in musical form? Right before I tried to eat you?”

“Oh. I… yes. I  _ do  _ remember that.”

“So, did you like--”

_ “Nothing.” _

With a frustrated growl, Maui turned away from the small pile of gold and glared up at Tamatoa. Of course it wasn’t a surprise that the hairpin wasn’t there: they had already known that the odds it would be in the small heap that had been left were low. Still, Moana could understand all too well Maui’s frustration: his only means to speak to his mother, his family, may just be… anywhere, really. “You. Who took your treasure?”

The question made Tamatoa scowl, anger looming behind his eyes like thunderclouds. “Would be quicker to tell you who  _ didn’t  _ take it. It was a whole swarm of them.”

“And where did they go?”

“How would I know? I was stuck on my back! All I know is that they must have left Lalotai.”

“And what makes you so sure?”

A scoff. “Would  _ you _ be lingering here after stealing my stuff?”

“Yes,” said Maui.

“No,” said Moana.

Tamatoa nodded and pointed at her with a claw. “See? The human got it right. She’s the smart one. I like her!”

“You tried to eat me,” Moana pointed out. Tamatoa grinned.

“And I’m sure I’d have found you delicious!” he exclaimed, sounding all the world like he was paying her a great compliment. Ancestors, he probably  _ really _ thought he was.

“... Huh. Thanks?”

“You’re welcome!”

“Don’t go stealing my lines now,” Maui muttered, and stomped away, throwing the hook over his shoulder. “Let’s go. Wherever that hairpin is, it’s not here.”

Moana was about to follow, but paused - both of them did - when Tamatoa spoke up. “Sooo. You want that hairpin back, right?”

A few steps ahead of her, Maui stiffened before turning. His expression was icy. “Is there something you know and are not telling me, Crabcake? Want me to beat it out of you? Because if that’s what you want--”

“You don’t even know what it looks like, do you?” Tamatoa cut him off, taking a step closer. He was towering above them now, and Maui immediately put himself between him and Moana.

“But you do,” ha said. It wasn’t a question - it was a statement. 

“Of course I do. I know every single piece of my treasure like the back of my claw,” the giant crab confirmed. “I could recognize them anywhere.”

“Get to the point.”

Tamatoa lowered himself to the ground, eyes getting slightly closer. Moana guessed that was supposed to be a non-threatening stand, but it was hard not to feel threatened all the same. “We both want something, don’t we? You want that hairpin, and I want my treasure back. Finding one means finding the other, or at least part of it.”

Maui raised an eyebrow. “... Tell me you’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”

Tamaroa grinned. “Of course I am! I… I think?” he paused, and frowned. “Depends? What do  _ you  _ think I’m saying?”

“That you want to come with us,” Moana spoke, and Tamatoa’s frown melted into another grin.

“Hah! Yes! Told you she’s the smart one!” he exclaimed, a triumphant note in his voice. 

“Forget about it,” Maui snorted, and Tamatoa gave something that looked a lot like a  _ pout.  _

“Seriously? Do you know how many golden pins like that one I collected? How many are out there scattered in the ocean right now? A lot, lemme tell you! What, are you going to hoard every single golden pin in the sea and in every island you can reach? Hah! That’s gonna take so long your skinny human friend will have long since turned to dust!”

Maui’s scowl deepened. “Leave her out of this.”

“And why?  _ You _ dragged her into this.”

“I actually kind of insisted to come,” she pointed out. Tamatoa blinked down at her. 

“... I take back what I said about you being the smart one.”

“Hey! I tricked you once, remember? If I’m not the smart one, what does that make you?”

“Fine, fine! I take back half of it. You’re still  _ kinda _ smart. Are you happy no--”

“You’re not coming with us,” Maui snapped, cutting him off. “I can throw you way further than I can trust you.”

“You don’t need to trust me - just to  _ know  _ me,” Tamatoa pointed out. “You  _ know  _ what I want. If you can help me get it back, I’m all for helping you out. A measly golden hairpin is no price to pay, and as for your  _ annoying _ company, I’ll manage. You help me find the treasure, and, the moment I see the thing  _ you _ want, I’ll know and tell you. How ‘bout that? I get my treasure back, and you get your ugly hairpin!” he exclaimed, lowering himself enough to be… well, not quite at eye level, but the closest he could, and extended his claw. “Have we got a deal?”

Maui snorted, and swatted it aside. “I don’t make deals with--.”

“Deal.”

“You can’t be serious,” Maui protested, but his voice was drowned out by Tamatoa’s. 

“Yes! Hah! I knew you were the smart one, huma--”

“Only one thing,” Moana cut him off, and stepped closer, until she was right before him, and gestured for him to lower his head. “Come closer.”

Tamatoa blinked, clearly curious, but he did lean as low as he could, eyes inching closer and antennae falling within her reach. Moana reached to grasp one for emphasis, picked one eye, and stared straight into it. “This  _ human  _ has a name,” she said, and Tamatoa blinked again.

“Oooh, right. Was it Vaiana or--”

“Moana,” she cut him off, yanking at his antennae. It wasn’t a strong enough pull for Tamatoa to feel any pain - she was sure she couldn’t hurt him even if she tried to - but it did cause him to shut his mouth. “Moana of Motunui. I sailed across the sea, restored the heart of Te Fiti--”

“And awful waste, if you ask to--”

“And right now,” she cut him off again, more forcefully, glaring into his right eye, “I am the one thing standing between you and a  _ very  _ powerful demigod who’d  _ love  _ to make a ship out of your shell.”

Tamatoa seemed about to say something but didn’t; his eyes flickered towards Maui for a moment before turning back to her, wide and somewhat bewildered.  _ Good. _

“Keep your word, and you’ll have your treasure back. Break it, and I won’t keep  _ him  _ from breaking you. Is that clear?”

Tamatoa blinked, bewilderment turning into something closer to fear.

“Is it?” she pressed on, and tugged at his antennae again. When Tamatoa spoke again, his voice was nothing short of a croak.

“... Crystal.”


	5. Setting Sail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait. Here’s a longer chapter than usual to make up for it. I’ll try to keep updates regular from now on, possibly every two weeks.

Tamatoa had never been especially fond on the sun.

Yes, it was probably the shiniest thing in existence, but staring at it hurt his eyes and really, what's the point of being shiny if no one can stand looking at you for more than a few seconds? There wasn’t any, that was it. And even without looking at it there was that annoying glare to deal with, reflecting on water and sand; it was one of the main reasons why Tamatoa hardly ever left his cave during the day, unless it was to do pretty deep underwater.

All in all, he preferred the night a great deal more. Stars were a lot better to look at, too:  nice and shiny, but not in a way that made your eyes burn. So, really, short days and long nights seemed a really sweet deal to him.

But of course humans were weird and annoying, and for some reason they also were the apple of Maui’s eye, so _obviously_ he just had to bend the laws of nature over and backwards to please them. It wasn’t the first time he had done it, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. However, as he struggled to hold onto the net where a very angry, very hot, flaming and roaring immortal entity struggled with all its might to break free, Tamatoa knew it would definitely be the last time _he_ would be involved in any of it.

 _It will be easy,_ Maui had said. _It will be fun,_ he had said. _Just hold onto the net, tire it out a bit, and I’ll handle the rest,_ he had said, and gone into hiding, to catch the sun by surprise.

Well, the sun sure had been surprised, finding itself trapped in a magical net - was it really magical? ‘Cause, he had only Maui’s word that it was - and now was putting up one hell and a half of a fight to break free.

“Aaagh! Just be still! Be still! Pretty please?” Tamatoa gritted out, struggling to hold onto the net, but of course the sun - Tamanuiterā, Maui had called it - didn’t comply. Tamatoa’s legs skittered over the hard stone ground, digging tracks in it while he desperately tried not to be dragged over the edge of the abyss the sun had risen from, the light so intense it made it hard for him to keep his eyes open at all. And then there was the heat, growing more and more unbearable by the second, making Tamatoa feel like he was about to just be cooked alive.

Unless, of course, Tamanuiterā decided to up the game and just turn him into a heap of smoking ashes. Which was definitely what it would do if Tamatoa let go of it, so dropping the net wasn’t an option at all: he had to hold on and hope that Maui would finally decide to do his part to--

The flaming entity roared again, and gave another jolt that almost, _almost_ threw Tamatoa off the edge and into the flaming pit below. Tamatoa shrieked, throwing all of his weight back to counter and sliding further on the rocky ground despite his efforts. Just another pull like it, and--!

“Maui? I can’t hold on much longer! _Now_ would be a good moment to show up, don’t you think, buddy? Maui? MAU--!”

_“CHEE-HOO!”_

The scream was barely out of his mouth when another cry rang out, louder than even the sun’s roaring, and something snapped - the _net._ Tamatoa was thrown back and away from the pit, landing heavily on his shell, his underside terrifyingly exposed. He cried out, lifting his claws to shield himself from a blow that... never came. There were screams and roars, the sounds of a fight, but most of it was lost to Tamatoa: stuck as he was and still half-blinded by the light, be couldn’t see a thing. He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the burning sensation and really hoping that, should he come out of that mess alive, he couldn’t end up blinded or--

“GOTCHA!”

Maui’s triumphant cry was what made Tamatoa dare to crack his eyes open to take a look. The sun was up in the sky, but not too high up: holding it in place was Maui’s fishhook. The magical - again, was it _really_ magical? - line attached to it was pulled taut, Maui holding onto it with all of his strength, muscles straining.

“Who is this? Why are you trapping me?” something roared, the voice coming from all directions at once, and it took Tamatoa a moment to realize who must have spoken; he had never wondered whether or not a flaming ball could talk at all, really.

Maui, on the other hand, didn’t seem surprised at all. “It’s Maui, demigod of wind and sea! Warrior, trickster, shapeshifter! Have you heard of me? Sure you have!” he yelled, and yanked the rope, causing the deity to be pulled back closer to the ground. “Now listen up, Tamanuiterā! You’re going _way_ too fast in the sky, and that’s no good for humans - so how about you take it slow, huh? So that days last longer? Friendly suggestion there!”

The sun went very still, a noise that sounded a lot like sputtering filling the air. “Is _this_ what you call a _friendly suggestion,_ demigod??”

“Yeah, would hate to be on the receiving end of his suggestions,” Tamatoa muttered, trying and failing to get himself upright. Well, wasn’t that awesome: he had grown too large and heavy to flip himself back on his feet. Great.

Maui laughed, but when he spoke again he was talking to Tamanuiterā. “Hey, at least no one can say I don’t get stuff done. Because I did get my point across, didn’t I, hot stuff? Won’t have to come here and repeat it all over to you again?”

“No. You have made yourself very clear indeed,” the deity grumbled. “Let go of me, if you want me to begin my journey through the sky at all.”

“Oh, sure. There, you’re free. Get going - slowly, got that part?”

No answer was uttered, but it was clearly a yes: as Tamanuiterā lifted itself in the sky, tired and beaten, it was moving a fair deal more slowly than usual. With a loud laugh, Maui let himself fall back on the ground next to Tamatoa.

“Mission accomplished! Hah! You okay, Crabby? That was amazing, wasn’t it? I’ve got to admit you looked pretty cool back there, holding back a giant ball of flames! Goes with your name, huh? If I were the kind of guy who thinks fate is written in the name, I’d say you were born for this!” he added, and gave him a shove powerful enough to flip him right back on his stomach. “What, not saying anything? Why so quiet?”

“You’re never, ever, _ever_ going to drag me into something like this. Ever,” Tamatoa groaned, forcing himself to stand. At least he could do as much, all limbs in working order, but he was rather sure he was gonna feel _that_ for weeks to come. He’d never had to strain himself so much before.

Maui laughed. “What, did you think slowing down the sun was gonna be easy? But we did it! Look! Now days are going to last longer and humans aren’t going to have to do everything in a rush! Isn’t it awesome?” he added, gesturing to the sky with a wave of his hand, the grin on his face so wide it threatened to split it in two.

“Good for them,” Tamatoa said drily. There had been no love lost between him and the few humans he had met. At least he had gotten a pearl out of it, and the thought of it made him  feel a bit less grumpy. He was about to ask if he could go home now when Maui suddenly turned back and lifted his arms, puffing out his chest.

“Ah-ha! You’re gonna love this! Look!”

“Look at what?”

“My pecs!”

Tamatoa opened his mouth to point out he had absolutely _no_ interest in his pecs either, but he found himself blinking, taken aback, when something on Maui’s skin shifted. The ink from his tattoos was rearranging itself to show something new. There was Maui, unmistakable, using his hook to hold the sun still, and right next to him… wait a sec…

“Hey, is that… me?”

“Yep! Cool, huh? Hero stuff, and you’re in it! Right here on my skin. I know, I know, it’s a lot to take in - breathe and take it easy, okay?”

Tamatoa wasn’t _that_ ecstatic he’d forget how to breathe, really, but he still had to admit it was rather cool to see himself there among Maui’s tattoos, doing something that really was the stuff legends were made of. He opened his mouth to concede that yes, it wasn’t half bad, but Maui spoke first. He had turned to glance at something towards the west, and the grin had faded into a pensive frown. Which wasn’t something Tamatoa had seen on him often, really. Especially the ‘pensive’ bit.

“Hey, didn’t you mention once that you’ve never been in Lalotai?” he asked, causing Tamatoa to blink. He had probably mentioned it, of course, but he was rather sure it had been a long time ago - maybe even thousand years or so. No less than a few hundred, at any rate, so he was rather surprised Maui remembered that detail at all.

“Never been there, no. Not that I remember. Why do you ask?”

“Because it’s not too far away from here, come to think of it. So, what do you think? Up for a tour of your ancestor’s place? After today, you’ve earned it,” he said, gesturing towards the horizon. “Plus, the fight was fun and all, but I’d still be up to clobber a monster or two.”

“... Huh. Why?”

“What do you mean, why? ‘Cause Lalotai monsters are fun to clobber. That’s why. Also, it’s a hero thing.”

“But _I_ am a monster from Lalotai, too,” Tamatoa pointed out, frowning. He may not have grown up there, but that was where his family had been from and where his egg had hatched, so it felt a lot like he was from there; his Gran saying over and over again that was their real home had probably something to do with it, too. Was he saying that, if they’d met there, beating him up would have been a heroic thing to do?

Unaware of his thoughts, Maui laughed like he had just told some kind of joke and punched his left claw. “Hah! Good one! Of course that doesn’t apply to you. You’re my buddy,” he said lightly, and threw the hook over his shoulder after discarding the rope he had tied to it. “So, are you curious to take a look or not? We've got all day now that out friend up there is taking it nice and easy!”

He was curious, really, and he followed him without asking further questions, the conversation soon entirely forgotten about.

Or so they both had thought.

* * *

“... You really don’t like the sun, do you?”

“What gave it away?”

“You complaining non-stop about it was a good hint.”

Tamatoa scoffed, still squinting against the light. “Just got to get used to it again,” he said. Truth be told, Moana could see why he’d have a hard time adjusting: not much light made it into Lalotai. Some part of it were completely dark, some were left in a sort of half-light, but none of them was anywhere as bright the surface in full sunlight.

“Well, don’t take too long getting used. We’ve got places to be,” Maui said, loading another handful of coconuts on the boat before turning back to them. “For the record, the chicken and the pig are off limits. You’ll be catching your own food. If you can _still_ do that without luring them without shiny crap, that is.”

Actually, Tamatoa still had some shiny trinkets on him: he had placed what was left on his treasure back on his shell before leaving the cave. It wasn’t much, but enough to make one long shiny stripe in the middle of his back, and it did shimmer quite a bit in the sun - enough to attract some fish for sure. “Just so you know, I took down a whale once and I could do it again!” Tamatoa snapped, glaring at him, and paused for a moment before looking down at Moana. “It was actually pretty cool. Would you like me to tell you about it?”

“Maybe another time,” Moana said, then glanced at the boat again, entirely missing the disappointed pout on his face. Come to think of it, her boat was barely the size of one of  Tamatoa’s claws. “So. _How_ are you going to come with us? Are you going to swim?”

The giant crab shot her an unimpressed look. “Do I look like I’d float?”

“... Not really.”

“Didn’t think so. And you’re supposed to be the _smart_ one.”

“Are you really going to keep that up for--”

“He’s going to walk,” Maui cut her off, and grinned. “Follow us while walking on the _bottom_ of the ocean like a good little bott--”

“Maui,” Moana cut him off, warningly. Last thing she needed now was for another fight to break out. To her relief, Maui got the hint and dropped the matter with a shrug.

“... Anyway. If he can keep up, he’ll follow us from the bottom of the ocean.”

“Of course I can,” Tamatoa snorted, sounding rather offended. Maui shrugged off his protest.

“Suuure. How long can you hold your breath now? Used to be a decent amount of time.”

It was Tamatoa’s turn to shrug. It was impressive to look at, really: Moana had thought that maybe seeing him in the open would make him seem less of of a giant, but she had been wrong. It was like watching a mountain rising and falling; not quite as impressive as Te Fiti had been, never like it, but still quite a sight. “I can stay without breathing for a whole day now.”

“A whole day as in, a day and night? Or just a day _or_ a night?”

“Huh. Good question,” Tamatoa muttered, reaching to tap his chin with a claw. “A day _and_ a night if I’m at rest, but I’ll be moving, so… probably just the day? Or just the night.”

“Then you’d be fine following us through the day, as long as we stop on an island at night?”

“Yep! Or shallow water - I can make do with that, too.”

“What if we find neither?” Moana asked. Mapping out an itinerary that would allow them to stop on land or shallow waters regularly shouldn’t be too much of a problem, at least according to Maui, but anything could happen out at sea. A bout of bad weather could be enough to throw them off course for hours, or even days.

“Then he drowns,” Maui said lightly.

“HEY!” Tamatoa protested, crossing his claws. “You still need me, you semi-demi-mini-god! Got to tell you if we find the hairpin, remember?”

Maui gave a dramatic sigh. “Way to bring in reality. Ah well. A guy can dream,” he said, then shrugged and held up a hand when Moana rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine. Serious answer: if we find no land or shallow waters by night, I’ll turn into a whale and drag this gigantic pain in the butt up to surface to breathe. Pretty sure I can still do it. How does that sound?”

_… Can still do it?_

“Better than drowning,” was the grudging reply.

“We’ll just agree to disagree on that,” Maui muttered, and reached to hit the drum on the boat. “I’ll be putting this in the water and give it a hit every once in a while, in case the water gets deep and you can’t see us all the way from the bottom,” he added. Thankfully, Tamatoa didn’t seem to quite catch on the way he had stressed out the last word. “You can still pick that up through water and follow, right?”

“Sure I can! Tell me one time I ever got lost!” the giant crab huffed, only to pause and blink as thought a thought had suddenly occurred to him. “... Wait. You’re _not_ going to lead me astray on purpose and then just leave, right?”

“What, to make you drown? Don’t make me laugh. There are more satisfying ways to kill you off. But as we have a _deal,_ or at least as you and the kid do--” Maui trailed off when Moana cleared her throat. Both him and Tamatoa turned to see her staring at them, eyes shifting from one to the other and back, arms crossed over her chest. “... What?”

“I’m going ignore the ‘kid’ part for now. Correct me if I got this wrong, but… you guys have done this before, haven’t you?”

“Not at all!” Maui snapped.

“Well, duh,” Tamatoa muttered.

Moana raised an eyebrow. “I’ll take it as a yes. So the two of you used to travel together?”

“Absolutely not.”

_“Duh.”_

“You say _duh_ one more time--” Maui began, lifting his hook, but trailed off when Tamatoa snorted and kicked up some sand in his direction, causing him to shout and reach up to shield his face.

“Don’t worry, I’m _done_ talking about old times. You’re the one who won’t shut up,” he grumbled, and gave Moana a passing glance. “Did he tell you how he slowed down the sun? Bet he did. He must have told that story a million times, just minus a detail or two,” he added, and turned his back to both of them. “Now if you’ll _excuse_ me, I’ll be in the water having breakfast while you get that piece of wood ready to sail.”

Moana watched him get in the water with the grace of a falling tree, the ripples causing the boat to rock violently and both Pua and Heihei to jump on land. She picked up Pua, made sure Heihei wasn’t up to walk to his doom in some crevice, and turned to glance at Maui. He was glaring daggers at Tamatoa, but it wasn’t his expression Moana focused on - it was his tattoos. One of them, really, the one in which Maui was shown slowing down the sun. It looked pretty straightforward - what had Tamatoa been talking about, then? Why had he brought it up?

Before she could ask, or even just wave back at Mini Maui and her own tiny self, Maui snorted and looked away from the water. “Uugh, this guy. At least we won’t have to listen to him while sailing.”

Moana had to admit that sounded like a plus, even though she couldn’t shake off some nervousness at the thought the giant crab would be beneath the boat all along, hidden from sight. Of course she knew he wouldn’t dare attack, especially having nothing to gain from it, but it was still unnerving.

“So… you said we have places to be. That’s great, but… _where_ are we going?” she asked. “Do you really have an idea of where to look?”

“Sort of. It’s called the Vault - not very original, but still. Treasures have a tendency to find their way there - it’s a bit of a magnet for valuable things. Blame the currents, old tales, pirates, magic, whatever. Crabcake took plenty of stuff from there, believe me. Wouldn’t be surprised if that was where he found my old hook, too,” he added, then shrugged. “I’m not sure that’s where his treasure may have winded up, but it’s the best place to start looking. I don’t have better ideas,” he added, and turned to go get the boat ready to sail.

Moana watched him walk away, biting her lower lip. His hair hid one tattoo from sight, the one of his abandonment or perhaps his funeral, but there was another one plain to see on the left side of his back: Maui and Tamatoa at a stony cliff, locked in a vicious struggle.

_Make him talk about himself. He loves bragging about how awesome he is._

_You two must get along perfectly._

_Well, not since I ripped his leg off._

Back then, she’d been too surprised by the casual revelation first and then by Tamatoa simply rising up from beneath her to really give what he had said much thought, but now she couldn’t help but wonder what he had really meant with that _since._ And, most of all, just what had happened _before._ Maybe she was just reading too much into things, but--

“Bwoook!”

“Wha-- Heihei! No! Come back here! I’m not going to come take you out of a monster’s jaws again, you hear?”

If he heard, Heihei gave no sign of it. Then again, it was to be expected - he was a _chicken,_ and not an especially bright one at that. As she chased after him, Pua in her arms, she failed to realize that Maui had turned to glance back at her for a few seconds before marching towards Tamatoa in quick strides, the hook held tightly in his right fist.

* * *

“Here, fishy! C’mon, a little closer… just a little bit… thaaat’s right, look at the shiny-- OOF!”

“Hey, Crabcake. A word?”

The sudden weight on the back of his neck shifted, and something sharp - not much guesswork was needed to figure out exactly what it had to be - pressed against the vulnerable spot where his neck ended and his shell began. There was no telling how much damage he could cause if he decided to press on, but it would definitely hurt quite a lot. And Tamatoa wasn’t a fan of pain, no sir, not at all.

“Seriously? What do you _want_ from me, man? We can just talk without--”

“Keep your voice down,” Maui hissed. The tip of his hook sunk slightly deeper and Tamatoa had to clench his jaw not to let out a very undignified whimper. “Actually, you know what? Don’t speak at all and listen. Are you listening?”

“Do you see me covering my-- ow! Okay! Yes! Listening!”

“Good. Here’s the deal, plain and simple: if she gets hurt, _you_ get hurt.”

… Seriously? “Where’s _that_ coming from? We have a common goal, remember? I have no reason to hurt her! She’s actually better company than you are, if you ask to--”

“Nobody asked you anything,” Maui snapped, but he relented: the painful pressure on the back of his neck eased some. “But as I have seen what happens when a human is unlucky enough to stand in the way when you see _any_ treasure, here’s your official warning. You ignored it once and lost a leg. Next time, it could be a claw, or both. Or your head.”

The smartest thing to do at that point would have been just nodding, saying that yes, he got it all crystal clear. Just say yes, be very still and breathe out a sigh of relief when Maui moved away without maiming him further.

But Tamatoa hardly, if ever, went for the smartest option. So he scowled and turned his head as much as he could, eyestalks poking towards Maui. “You haven’t changed at all, have you? Thousands of years and still the same fixation. No one touches your pets.”

“Humans are _not_ my pets,” Maui bristled. “They’re--”

“Your fans, then. Some difference. It’s eat or be eaten for everyone, but no one touches them because _you_ say so, huh?”

_‘Cause Lalotai monsters are fun to clobber. That’s why. Also, it’s a hero thing._

“Don’t give me that! There was no eat or be eaten! You just wanted more treasure and didn’t care who got hurt--” Maui snapped, but Tamatoa had had enough. With a snort, he spun suddenly, causing him to be thrown off him and into the water; an old trick, but it still worked. Maui immediately stood, dripping water and holding up his hook, ready to fend off an attack that didn’t come. Tamatoa was angry, but neither stupid nor suicidal.

“Says the guy who chased after monsters ‘cause it was _fun_ and you looked _so_ amazing doing it,” he snapped instead. “You step all over a giant eel for just being a giant eel doing giant eel things, and you’re a hero. I take some trinkets from humans, sink a few ships, and all hell breaks loose. I was the exception only until you decided I wasn’t anymo--”

“You had been _warned_ to leave them alone,” Maui snarled, cutting him off. “You have no one to blame but yourself. If you know what’s good for you, you _won’t_ ignore my warning again.”

Tamatoa scoffed and turned away. “Fine,” he spat, crossing his claws.

“Fine,” Maui echoed, crossing his arms.

“Fine.”

 _“Fine.”_ _  
_

“FIN--”

_“BWAAAAK!”_

“What the…?”

They both turned just in time to see the chicken being launched through the air by a geyser, followed after a few moments by the squealing pig and then - of course - the human. All three landed in the sea, splashing up varying amounts of water; moments later the human emerged again, the pig on one shoulder and the chicken on her head.

“We’re all fine!” she called out, waving. Like anyone had asked, Tamatoa would have thought if he wasn’t too busy blinking, wondering exactly what had just happened.

“... I have a few concerns,” he finally said.

“Lucky you. I have more than a few and _you_ are most of them,” Maui muttered, causing Tamatoa to scowl. He was about to point out that of course the feeling was entirely reciprocated, but he fell silent when he realized that something was up in the water: the sea seemed to be shifting around her and then… wait, was it lifting her on the boat? What? _How?_

Maui seemed to notice his surprise, and grinned. “Oh, right. Just thought I’d mention she’s all buddy-buddy with the Ocean. _And_ she’s the one who took on Te Ka. Slipped my mind.”

“That’s kind of a _big_ thing to slip your mind,” Tamatoa pointed out, unable to look away as the human… did she just _high-five_ the ocean? Yes, that was exactly what it looked like. Tamatoa blinked, mentally noting that staying on her good side would probably be a good idea. But how was he supposed to know that some skinny human would be _that_ well-connected? And powerful enough to take down Te Ka? How could that be? What power was she hiding?

“Not the biggest thing that ever slipped my mind,” Maui was saying. “I was more than happy to let _you_ slip my mind for a thousand of years or so.”

“Oh, har har,” Tamatoa said drily. Maui just shrugged, and turned to walk up to the boat.

“Well, we’re good to go. Try not getting lost, because I _really_ don’t feel like fishing you up.”

Tamatoa scowled at his retreating back, but it melted in a grin when he thought about the hairpin safely tucked away in his carapace. Let him think he was _so_ smart while being played like a fiddle to get him what he wanted; it just made everything more amusing.

“Oh, _please._ I know the way to the Vault like the back of my claw,” he finally called out. A long time had passed since they had first met, after all. Things had changed. “I _never_ get lost.”

* * *

“Did we just _lose_ him?”

“Naaah, don’t think so. I’m not so lucky.”

Moana bit her lower lip, her gaze wandering over the waves. The sun had just begun lowering in the sky when they had reached the island and begun settling up for the night. Now it was disappearing at the horizon, the sky streaked orange and purple, some stars already starting to show… and there was still no trace of Tamatoa. Of course most of her concern was due to the fact he really was the only one to know what the hairpin they were after looked like, but to be completely honest, she didn’t really like the thought he might have drowned. He had relied on their directions to reach someplace to come to surface for the night, and they’d had a deal she didn’t mean to break.

“Maui, we need him--”

“I know, I know. Just kidding, honest,” Maui said, lifting his arms. He was sitting next to the campfire he’d built, cracking a coconut open. “Well, _mostly_ kidding. Either way, I’m sure he followed us just fine all the way here and will show up soon. He’s probably stuffing his face on seafood somewhere in the lagoon. And if he doesn’t come out by the time the moon is up, I’ll go looking for him,” he added, holding out half of the coconut for her. “Deal?”

Moana smiled. “Deal,” she said, taking the coconut and sitting on a log, pushing her feet beneath the cooling sand; the sensation was all the more welcome after an entire day of sailing. Next to the log, Pua was already napping. She drank some of the milk, gazing at Maui’s tattoos. Mini Maui and Mini Moana both waved at her, and she returned the wave briefly before clearing her throat, her gaze falling back on the one showing Maui in the process of catching the sun. “Look, I don’t mean to pry...” she began, and Maui raised both eyebrows.

“You know there is no reason to start off like that unless that’s _exactly_ what you’re gonna do, right?”

“Okay, fine. I’m kind of curious,” she admitted, and added nothing more. She was certain that Maui would guess just fine what she was wondering about and, if he decided he didn’t want to talk about it, she wouldn’t ask. As it turned out, she didn’t need to.

“There isn’t much to say. Tamatoa and I used to be friends. Or at least we thought we were, but I’m not so sure anymore. We just did stupid things together. A treasure hunt there, some wrestling here, slowing down the sun… yeah, he was there when that happened,” Maui added, clearly having noticed her surprised expression. He reached to tap on his chest, over the tattoo in which he held the sun still. The cast flickering shadows over it. “He used to be here, too, just like you on the other side. But that was a long time ago.”

 _And now he’s on your back,_ Moana thought. _The two of you, locked in a fight._

“Then what happened?”

“I tore off his leg.”

Moana raised an eyebrow. “There was a _reason_ for that, right?”

“Nah, just an arm wrestling match gone wrong,” Maui replied, and to his credit he managed to keep up a perfectly serious expression for three whole seconds before snorting out a laugh. “Hah! Yeah, of course there was. Do I look like the kind of guy who’d just go around and tear limbs off monsters for fun?”

Moana opened her mouth.

“... On second thought, don’t answer that.”

Moana closed her mouth, and Maui sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Anyway. He always had a thing for hoarding treasure, but it wasn’t a problem at first. I liked the treasure hunting part, and he could keep most of what we found. I gave my part of it to humans, of course. Until one day Tamatoa decided he wanted it all, and…” he paused, and glared into the fire. “Things began to happen.”

“What kind of things?”

“Ships going missing, for one. Some disappeared entirely, while others were found shipwrecked. Treasures were stolen from villages. There were talks of monsters that came at night, but I didn’t think for a moment it may be him. Until one day he raided a village in broad daylight. Can you believe he seriously expected me to think it had been _another_ giant monster crab?”

“And you knew it was him?”

“It couldn’t be anyone else. I was rather sure he was the last of his kind to begin with, but when I went to check at his cave - the old one, I mean, you haven’t seen that one - the missing treasures were all there. The big idiot hadn’t even bothered hiding it elsewhere, and at least he realized denying was pointless after some yelling. I was, how should I put this? _Slightly_ annoyed.”

Well, no wonder. Moana could definitely see why he’d be furious, and how it had led to a fight. Providing for humans, and protecting them, was what Maui had been all about. Because he'd needed to be someone’s hero. Because he'd needed to be wanted and wanted to be needed. “And that was when you fought?”

Maui grinned. “Seems pretty obvious, huh? But no. As in, we didn’t trade blows, but we sure yelled a lot. Mostly me, I guess,” he added with a shrug. “I told him - no, no, stay outta the fire, you dumb chicken - that if it were anyone _else,_ I’d have already torn him apart and taken all the treasure back to humans. I warned him that humans were, and would always be, off limits. That if he tried pulling that one more time, he’d be sorry.”

He fell silent, and for a few moments there were no other sounds but the crackle of fire, the waves rolling on the sand, the light breeze among the palm trees. When he spoke again he did so slowly, his voice lower. “He ignored the warning. I made him sorry he did. But just to make it clear,” he added, his voice lighter, “I didn’t go there and rip off his leg while he was snoozing. I was just thinking of beating some sense in his stupid head. I confronted him, he attacked, and _that_ escalated. He thought he could take on me and he was wrong.”

Honestly, Moana wasn’t certain she wanted to imagine what the fight had been like. Maui was incredibly powerful, and Tamatoa terrifyingly big and strong; the potential damage they both could deal was huge. All things considered, losing one leg wasn’t the worst possible outcome by a long shot.

“I see. And he, uh. I assume he’s held a grudge against you ever since?”

Maui raised an eyebrow. “Now, why would you go assuming that? Just because he tried to eat me after reminding me that I had been abandoned at birth, left to either drown or become food for--”

“SHARK!”

“Wha--”

The warning cry wasn’t anything Moana hadn’t heard before: there had been times when she and other villagers had been idly swimming in the shallow waters around the island - not something her father liked them doing, but sometimes the days were too hot for anyone to resist - when somebody had spotted a fin. The cry had been immediately raised, and a mad scramble for the shore had followed. What followed now, however, was a shark landing from the sky on the sand next to them, causing Pua to squeal and bolt off while Heihei dropped down on the ground, stiff as a stick.

Moana moved before she even had time to process how absurd that was: she immediately stood, reaching out to grasp her oar at the same time, and jumped back, the oar held between herself and the shark.

Except that the shark stayed motionless, just as still and stiff as Heihei. Which was normal for her chicken, but for a beached shark… not so much. With a sigh of relief, Moana lowered the oar and turned to see Tamatoa looming only a short distance away, partly in the water and partly on the sandy beach. For a being that huge, he’d been incredibly quiet: Moana hadn’t heard him coming at all. It was kind of unnerving to realize just how easily he could sneak up on them if so he chose, but she had no time to dwell on it.

“Hey! What’s the big idea here?” Maui was protesting, crossing his arms. “Throwing dead sharks at us? Seriously?”

“What now? I got you guys dinner. You just like complaining about everything, don’t you?” Tamatoa said with what looked a lot like a shrug. “Well, whatever. If you don’t want it, your problem. More food for the human. I’m sure she won’t complain,” he added, and looked down at her somewhat expectantly. “Right? It was a good idea. I thought it was a good idea.”

Moana glanced at the shark, and had to admit that well, he wasn’t wrong. The supplies she and Maui had with them weren’t half bad, really, but nothing really beats something juicy and fresh. Plus, it might be best to try their best to be civil as long as they were stuck together, and she supposed that the fact he had gotten them food was an effort from his part, at the very least.

_And Maui wouldn’t be able to protect me all the time. Best to make sure he won’t want to eat me even if he gets a chance to._

“It was a great idea,” she said, and gave her best smile. “Thank you.”

Tamatoa’s uncertain expression melted in a grin that was more than just a touch smug. “You’re welcome!”

“Quit stealing my line,” Maui snapped, then looked at her with a frown. “If you said you wanted fish, I could have caught you--”

“Let’s get cooking this!” Moana cut him off, trying to sound as enthusiastic as possible, and grabbed the shark’s tail fin to drag it closer to the fire. Hopefully, Tamatoa wouldn’t pick up anything wrong with her tone and Maui would get the not at all subtle message to just leave it be. “Don’t think we can eat it all on our own, though. You’re having some too, right?”

Tamatoa - who had just started to turn back to the ocean - paused and blinked down at her. He looked incredibly confused. “What?”

“You’re… staying to eat, right?”

“I already had a shark for dinner. And a few dolphi-- wait, that’s an invitation! Right? Is it an invitation? It sounded like one.”

Moana pasted a wide smile on her face. “Sure! So, stay for the company?”

_Please say no. Please go away._

“How about no?” Maui snapped. Unaware of her real thoughts and entirely ignoring Maui’s protest, Tamatoa grinned.

“If you insist,” he said, taking another few steps on the sand before dropping down on it, legs tucked beneath him and claws under his chin. Even so, he towered over them both. “Wouldn’t deny you the pleasure of my company.”

“I’m not pleased,” Maui pointed out.

“That’s a plus,” Tamatoa replied without missing a beat, then looked back at Moana and grinned again. “I always said you’re the smart one.”


	6. Kakamora

“Hey. Everything okay?”

“Hu-uh.”

“You sure? You look kinda distracted. Didn’t even hit that Megalodon like you meant it, you know? Left all the hard work to me. I mean, I could handle it, so no worries! Got a cool tooth out of it. Not shiny, so no problem if I keep this one, right?”

A shrug, and no real answer. Maui frowned, then walked up to Tamatoa. He was resting at the very edge of a ravine, one of the many in Lalotai, but it was clear he wasn’t paying any actual attention to whatever was below. Maui sat next to him, letting his legs dangle into the abyss. He stayed silent for a few moments, kicking his legs. A piece of rock fell down into the darkness, making no noise as though it never reached any bottom at all.

“... You were thinking we would find someone of your same species, right?”

Tamatoa let out a small grunt, and for a moment it looked like he wouldn’t add anything. Then he did, idly scratching his chin with a claw. “I guess,” he finally said. “I mean, Gran went on and on about this place, you know? How this is where we were supposed to be, how we’d be coming back when I got big enough to fend for myself, and so on. So I just assumed there would be more of us here.”

_More of you. Because she’s gone and now it’s starting to look like you’re the last._

“Yeah,” Maui said slowly. “I can see why you’d think--”

“And you assumed I was from Lalotai when we met,” Tamatoa went on, now turning to look at him. “You said you’d seen others like me here.”

He had, but only few times; Tamatoa’s kind had been rare already when Maui had been a boy and first went to Lalotai. Even rarer after he left it, as a couple of them had tried to turn him into their dinner and hadn’t lived to see the next day, but saying as much suddenly seemed a rather bad idea, so Maui kept that detail for himself.

“Not many, really,” he admitted. “The numbers had been falling for a long time. There were probably few left by the time you were born,” he said, and shot another glance upwards. Tamatoa was still staring into the dark; he didn’t look saddened, not really, but he was uncharacteristically expressionless and his antennae were limp. Maui knew that meant he wasn’t very happy, either. He sighed, and reached up to rub his neck.

“I should have taken you here sooner,” he finally said. Sure, he’d offered to do so before, but only as an off-hand mention until that day. If he’d seriously brought it up, say, a thousand years earlier, would they have found someone of his species still alive? “I didn’t think… I mean, you seemed pretty happy on your own. Never thought it would be important for you to meet someone else from your species. If I’d known--”

 _But I should have known,_ he thought. _I should have known because it was the same reason why I wanted to return among men, wasn’t it? Because godly powers and all, I still felt I was one of them. I wanted to be._

Unaware of Maui’s thoughts, Tamatoa blinked and turned to look at him. For a moment, he seemed almost confused. “I _am_ pretty happy on my own,” he said, then paused, as though going over the statement in his head a second time. “... Yep. I like my island and I’ve got my treasure there. Never really _needed_ to come back here, you know? Would have been nice to meet someone else like me, but…” a pause, then he shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll live. Plus, we’re not that sure I’m the last, right? There might be a few more somewhere else. The ocean is pretty big. If I grew up away from here, then maybe someone else did too.”

It seemed unlikely to Maui, but it was still within the realms of possibility, and he nodded, reaching to give Tamatoa’s side a punch. “Oh, yes. Maybe a female, who knows? So that you can settle down, and become her fix of protein as soon as she has a clutch of eggs to look after.”

Tamatoa made a face. “Oh. right. _That_ part.”

“I mean, not all of them do that, you know? Some wait until the eggs have hatched, so the dad gets to take a look at his brood before becoming her breakfast as well as their first mea--”

“I _think_ I got the gist of it, thanks.”

Maui laughed. “Why so squeamish now? Pretty sure you said you ate your ma and grandma.”

“They were already dead, thank you _so_ very much.”

“If I didn’t know you, I’d almost say you don’t like the idea of being killed to feed your brood.”

“Well, duh,” Tamatoa muttered, then shrugged again. “At least now I see why my species is mostly gone, though. No one with half a brain would _want_ to breed at these conditions. Only idiots who beget more idiots who’ll probably die some dumb way very quickly.”

Maui raised an eyebrow. “... Wouldn’t that make _you_ an idiot?”

Tamatoa shook his head. “Nope. I got Ma’s brains,” he said, and grinned. “I mean that literally. I ate--”

“All right, all right! Enough!” Maui cut him off, and Tamatoa laughed.

“Look who’s being _squeamish_ now,” he sneered. Maui was about to retort when he heard something coming from the darkness below them. He peered in and realization as to what it was - claws scraping against stone as _something_ climbed up on the almost vertical wall - hit him just one instant too late. He stood with a warning cry, but before he could lift his hook something emerged from the darkness with a roar, a huge mouth wide open to show razor-sharp, gleaming fangs.

Had he had a few more instants before impact, Maui would have realized said mouth and fangs belonged to a huge lizard with scales red as blood. But he was given no more time before the being slammed against him, knocking the hook off his hand, and tried to swallow him.

 _Tried_ to, because the moment it tried to bite down Maui reached up with both hands and caught the roof of the beast’s mouth, causing it to growl - gods, did that guy’s breath stink -  and try with all his might to bite down harder. The power in that maw would have annihilated any mortal, but of course he was no mortal; he had lifted up the sky, so of course he could hold up a some monster’s mouth open.

Except that it was really strong. Except that the roof of that mouth was so slippery. Except that if he lost his grip, even for a second, if his hands _slipped--_

“Hey!”

Tamatoa’s voice reached Maui’s ears only one moment before a loud thud, and the next instant it was as though all air had been knocked out of the monster in a gust of fetid wind that blew Maui out of its maw. He landed on the stone floor, immediately flipped in a crouch, and looked up - trying to ignore the disgusting slickness of saliva on his skin and gods, _it was in his hair_ \- to see that the thing who’d tried to eat him was a giant, red lizard. And that said lizard was currently snapping and thrashing, clearly furious, under the weight of a certain giant crab.

“Hey! A little help?” Tamatoa called out, trying to keep the lizard pinned down with his claws, the sharp teeth and claws leaving scratches on his carapace.

Maui grinned, and reached for his hook, which had fallen nearby.

_Not a bad save, buddy. Not bad at all._

“Help coming up,” he called out, and his hand closed on the hook’s handle.

* * *

“... And that’s how I saved his life.”

“You did not.”

“It _does_ sound like he saved your life…” Moana said slowly, and shrugged apologetically at Maui’s accusing glance. She didn’t see the smug look Tamatoa gave Maui from behind her, but she had no doubt that was precisely what he was doing, because Maui glowered at him before crossing his arms.

“I had everything perfectly under control.”

“Sure. Until your arms got tired, and then...”

“I could have snapped that lizard in two with both hands tied behind my ba--”

_“No you couldn’t!”_

Moana winced, because that raspy voice didn’t belong to either Maui and Tamatoa. She turned suddenly, hair whipping the air and hand reaching for her oar. Emerging from the water, illuminated by nothing but the moonlight, was something massive and scaly. Yellow eyes gleamed as though giving out a light of their own. It was the head of a… a…

_… Really now?_

“What are _you_ doing here?” Tamatoa snapped, turning to face the newcomer just as Maui grabbed the fishhook. “I mean, I do agree that he couldn’t have gotten out of it in his own - that’s what I said - but--”

“Pilifeai,” Maui snarled, cutting him off. “Why did you follow us?”

The huge lizard shrugged, or at last that was what Moana judged it had just done. With all of its body underwater it was hard to tell, although every movement caused ripples. “I didn’t. I was just having a swim here.”

Maui raised an eyebrow and exchanged a glance with Tamatoa. “Oooh, sure. Heard that? He was _just_ passing by.”

“Of course. And I’m a red lobster,” Tamatoa snorted. He snapped his claws. “You know, I think I’m going to cut off that forked tongue this time around. Pretty sure you called me a _bottom-feeder_ last time...”

“Fine, fine,” the giant lizard - Pilifeai, wasn’t that how Maui had called him? - conceded, taking a few steps back into the sea. “Maybe I _was_ following you.”

“What for? I’m pretty sure you said something on how you knew better than getting involved in anything we're up to,” Maui pointed out.

“I do. So I’m not getting involved. Just watching to find out who’s going to kill the other first.”

Maui blinked. “... Seriously?”

“Yes. You’ve been a bore so far, if I may add. I’d have expected the crab here to have lost at least another limb by now.”

“Hey!” Tamatoa protested, while Maui shrugged.

“You can blame her. She told me not to.”

“Maui!” Moana and Tamatoa snapped precisely at the same time. The lizard’s eyes paused on Moana for the first time since the surreal exchange had started.

“Oh. I didn’t introduce myself, did I? I am Pilifeai. And you’re the human who kicked the crustacean on his back, aren’t you? Leaving him all alone and powerless when his treasure was stolen...”

Tamatoa scowled, and Moana barely held back a groan. Oh, great, that was just what she needed the giant monster crab to be reminded of, just to make all of her efforts to be pleasant for nothing. “Actually, it was a geyser that knocked him back and--” she began, only to pause when she noticed a flash of white in the redness of Pilifeai’s scales - a grin. Realization hit her suddenly, and it was her turn to scowl. “Wait a moment. Are you trying to pit us against each other right now?”

Pilifeai sighed in clear disappointment. “Well, I’ll be. The human is smarter than both of-- ow!” he trailed off with a yelp when the coconut Moana had thrown hit him between the eyes. “Seriously?”

_“Scram.”_

“I don’t take orders from a huma--”

Maui lifted his hook. Tamatoa snapped a claw shut. Pilifeai’s gaze moved between them for a few moments before he cleared his throat. “As I was saying, I don’t _usually_ listen to humans…”

Moana smiled so widely that her cheeks hurt. “But you’ll make an exception this time.”

“Absolutely.”

“And you won’t follow us any further,” Maui warned. “Or you’ll be sorry.”

“Of course,” the giant lizard said quickly, and backed away; within moments, his head had disappeared under the water. A few moments of silence followed.

“... He’ll keep following us,” Tamatoa finally said, and Maui sighed.

“I’m ready to bet he will.”

Moana didn’t like the thought. Even though the lizard seemed to fear Maui and Tamatoa, at least together, he was huge enough to destroy her boat with extreme ease.

“Don’t worry about him, babe,” Tamatoa said, causing her to recoil. She hadn’t thought her worry had showed so clearly on her face, and most of all she hadn’t expected Tamatoa to pay any mind to her expression. “He’s not going to try anything with me upright and Mr. Mighty over here. I’d be more worried about the pig and the chicken if I were you. They’re not supposed to be doing _that,_ are they?”

Moana turned to see both Heihei and Pua were hiding their head under the sand, and likely had been since first spotting Pilifeai. For Heihei, it was not unusual. For Pua… it was. With a sigh, she went to take the shaking piglet in her arms. “You _really_ should have stayed home with mom and dad,” she sighed, letting him hide hide snout against the side of her neck.

“Yeah, about that,” Maui muttered. “I’ve kinda come to the conclusion your chicken is actually immortal, but I’m not so sure about the pig. Might be best to leave them behind with your boat a bit before we reach the Vault. There’s a small island just nearby, but far enough to be safe. We’ll pick them up on the way back.”

Moana blinked. “Wait. Why should I leave my boat there?”

“Because you don’t want to leave your _anything_ unattended at the Vault,” Tamatoa filled her in. “They’re going to steal it from you the moment you blink. And believe me, it _hurts_ when they steal from you,” he added before pouting. Moana kind of wished he’d stop doing that, but she did her best to give him what she hoped would come across as a sympathetic smile.

“Of course. So… who are _they,_ anyway?”

Maui shrugged. “Monsters. Supernatural beings. Supernatural pirates. Sentients entities. A bit of this, a bit of that. The Vault is kind of a trading place for all kinds of guys.”

“All of them bigger than you, babe.”

“Thanks for pointing that out.”

“Anytime!”

“... Anyway. You think the beings who took his treasure have been or will be there to trade?”

“If they have half a brain, yes. They know Crabcake knows every piece of his collection. They wouldn’t want to be ever caught by him with the stolen goods.”

“Not unless they want to become a snack,” Tamatoa huffed, but Moana ignored him.

“Good point. So, how am I supposed to get to the Vault if I leave my boat elsewhere?”

“I’ll carry you,” Maui said, and Moana couldn’t hold back a shudder when realization sank in.

“We’re _not_ going to fly, are we?”

Maui grinned.

* * *

The Vault, which Moana had imagined as an island, turned out to be something quite different. From up in the air, when she _dared_ uncover her eyes, she could tell it had once been a volcano that must have sank into the sea long ago, forming a ring of stone not unlike the one around Te Fiti. But, in this case, there was no island in the middle: only seawater where the crater must have once been.

And, according to Maui, the Vault was right beneath the surface.

With a screech, Maui dove down towards the rocks, talons clenching harder around Moana’s arms. She had a few seconds to regret everything - most notably, not trying to swim to the place as opposed to accepting Maui’s quite literal ‘lift’ - and clench her eyes shut before Maui let out another cry and _changed._ The talons holding her up disappeared, but before she could scream or even open her eyes Maui’s arm was around her waist, and when the impact came it wasn’t her to take it.

“Aaand landed! It was fun, c’mon! Just admit you’re starting to love it!”

Moana opened her eyes to see the ground beneath her. Maui was back to his human form, standing on the rocks she was so sure they’d smash into only moments before, holding her under his arm.

“Put me down,” she croaked. Maui laughed, and was gracious enough to actually put her down on her feet as opposed to just dropping her. Not enough to keep himself from snickering when she leaned against a rock, legs shaking.

“You’ll get the hang of it eventually.”

“I really don’t think so. I’ll swim on our way back.”

Maui opened his mouth to say something, but he was cut off by a sound of splashing water telling both of them that something - someone - really big was coming out. Moana looked up to see Tamatoa emerging from the water, still chewing what she supposed had to be fish. Maui crossed his arms.

“I see you found the time to have breakfast while we waited.”

Tamatoa glared back at him, but made a point not to reply until he was done chewing and swallowing. Moana was kinda grateful for that. “Don’t even start,” he finally said. “You just got here.”

“And how would you know that?”

“The human is still green in the face.”

Maui paused, and turned to look at her. He stared for a moment, then he sighed. “Point taken,” he conceded. Mini Maui marked one point for Tamatoa, something the giant crab didn’t seem to notice.

“Can you walk, babe?”

Moana did her best to smile. “I’ll be okay,” she said, leaning on the rock in a way she hoped would look casual. But at least her head wasn’t spinning _too_ much anymore. Tamatoa didn’t bother to enquire further either way, and nodded.

“Great. So, what now? We go barging in and grab all we can? ‘Cause I’d be down for that.”

“As much as I like the idea, no,” Maui said. “We can’t just barge in and take what we can. The guys in there would definitely fight back, and you said the hairpin we’re after is _fragile._ I can’t risk it being turned to dust.”

Tamatoa opened his mouth as though to say something, but paused as though a sudden thought occurred to him, and eventually shrugged. “Fine. What are we going to do then?”

“I think it would be best to be inconspicuous for now. We’ll get in there without anyone noticing us and--”

“Right, right,” Tamatoa muttered, cutting him off. “Let’s get going.”

Maui glanced at Moana. Moana glanced back at Maui. They both turned to look at Tamatoa.

“... Crabcake?”

“Yes?”

“You’re waiting for us here.”

Tamatoa blinked, clearly taken aback. “What? No way! There’s treasure in there and I’m not going to stay out! Why should I?”

“Because we need to be - wait for it - inconspicuous.”

Tamatoa blinked again.

“... We need to go unnoticed?” Maui tried again.

A scowl. “I know! I heard you the first time,” he protested, causing Maui to sigh.

“All right, Crabby. Do you think _you’re_ inconspicuous?”

Tamatoa opened his mouth, lifting a claw, then he paused and closed his mouth again. He looked down at himself, then his eyes shifted to Moana as though looking for a suggestion. She looked back at him - all fifty feet of him - and shook her head in silence. That caused the giant crab to frown.

“Aw, c’mon! I’m not even shiny anymore!”

“You’re still… rather noticeable?” Moana dared to say, and Tamatoa seemed to lighten up.

“Oooh, right! I still have some shinies! I can take them off and--”

Oh, for Te Fiti’s sake. “You _do_ realize you’re a fifty feet tall giant crab, right?” she blurted out, causing his claw to pause in the air. “You’re impossible to miss, shiny or not!”

Beside her, Maui shrugged. “What she said. Plus, they'll know it's you. It's not like there are others. And you’ve raided this place plenty of times in the past, haven’t you?”

“Naaaah! It’s just been… five or six… dozen… times,” Tamatoa replied, his voice getting a bit weaker with each word.

Maui raised both eyebrows. “I rest my case,” he said. On his chest, Mini Maui marked two points for him. “If you show up there, they’re going to recognize your ugly mug in a heartbeat.”

“HEY! Who are you calling ugly?”

“You. Not shiny anymore, remember? ”

“Oh. Right. I mean-- Human! Tell him to stop!”

Moana groaned, a hand pressing against her forehead. “Maui. Please,” she gritted out, fervently wishing she’d brought some fermented coconut milk along.

He chuckled. “Fine, fine. Anyway, you were doing one thing right, Crabcake. Get some of that stuff off your shell and hand it over. We’re going to need it.”

Tamatoa reared back as though struck. “What? No! Why?”

“Use what little brain you’ve got! We’re supposed to pretend we’re there to trade. Can’t really do that if we show up empty-handed, can we?”

“But--!”

“We’ll bring everything back,” Moana promised. “Plus some, if we can.”

Tamatoa crossed his claws. “You _must._ Your promised you would help me get my treasure back, and you’ve got to deliver! If you just come back with a bunch of hairpins for me to check out, I’ll… huh.”

“You’ll _huh_ us? So scary,” Maui scoffed. “What is it, are you taking a break to think up some original threat, or--”

“All that fog wasn’t there before, was it?”

“... Huh?”

Both Maui and Moana turned to see that… well, he was right. A fog bank was moving in towards them from the open sea; it was still quite some distance away, but the fact alone it hadn’t been visible minutes before showed just how quickly it was moving. In such an otherwise clear day, it seemed to have come out of nowhere… and the sound of drums in the distance told them precisely what was hidden in it.

“Kakamora,” Maui hissed.

“Huh,” Moana said.

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Tamatoa pointed out.

“But… didn’t we sort of destroy their ship? Ships? However you call _that_ thing?”

“Don’t underestimate how quickly they can repair things. They’re resourceful little thorns in the side.”

“They must be heading to the Vault, too,” Tamatoa mused. “Which means…” he paused, and his face lit up in a grin. He looked down, and Moana realized Maui was looking up, matching it with a grin of his own. For one moment, it was as though she just got a glimpse at how things were between them a long time before.

“They’ve got to be _loaded_ with treasure.”

“Your weight in gold that some of it is _my_ treasure,” Tamatoa said, sounding all the world like an excited child. “Those sneaky little creeps hadn’t left Lalotai in forever and the Kakamora have a knack for finding valuables - I bet at least some of them were robbed blind as soon as they were out!”

“Yeah, if anyone could pull that off, it’s the coconut heads over there,” Maui agreed. “All right, new plan. Let’s take on them first. I’ll make them use up a few weapons.”

“Wait, wouldn’t it be best to have a _real_ pla--”

“CHEE-HOO!”

Moana sighed, and just watched Maui’s hawk form fly towards the fog, and towards the dark outline of the huge ship - or ships, whatever she was supposed to call that trap on water. “All right then. No plan.”

To be fair, Maui didn’t seem to have any problem at first: he flew in and out of the mist, screeching, and avoiding everything - spears, darts, rounded projectiles Moana couldn’t identify - that was hurled towards him. If that kept up, the Kakamora would probably start running out of weapons really soon. “It’s working,” she sighed in relief.

“And I’m never going to hear the end of it,” Tamatoa muttered, something on his face that wasn’t too far away from a pout. He seemed about to complain some more, but he paused and squinted. “... Is the ship splitting?”

He was right: through the thick fog, Moana could see the outline of the ship beginning to split in two. It was nothing she hadn’t seen before, but it reminded her of a beast’s maw, and suddenly she wasn’t so sure about Maui’s brilliant idea anymore.

_This is not good. They could have something up their sleeve. They must--_

There was a cry, hundreds of high-pitched voices, and everything happened terribly fast.

With a screech, Maui shot upwards from the fog, up towards the sky, and he was almost, _almost_ fast enough. For a moment, Moana allowed herself to give a sigh of relief. Then something _else_ shot up, something that reached Maui and opened up in the blink of an eye. Moana had just an instant to realize what it was before the huge net closed on the hawk.

“NO!” she cried out, and tried to run into the sea, to get closer, but something huge and terribly strong seized her around the waist, lifting her up. Her legs kicked uselessly in the air.

“Hey, hey - what do you think you’re doing?”

“I’ve got to go and help!”

“He’s fine, babe. Just look.”

Moana did, and she realized that the net hadn’t been enough to bring down Maui: he was pulling against it with all of his might, and the rope that was clearly tethering it to the ship was pulled taut, ready to snap. And it would snap, any moment now… any moment--

Something else rose from the fog, like a swarm of insects, and there was nothing Maui could do to escape them.

_Darts._

Under Moana’s horrified gaze, Maui suddenly went still. He stopped pulling. The net went slack. And then, the hawk form was gone; Maui fell back into the fog, and did not come out again. Moana found herself staring numbly at the empty sky for several moments before Tamatoa spoke.

“... All right, well. Not so fine,” he said, “I’m starting to think we should have sent your chicken.”

Moana scowled, and kicked again. “Let me go! Now!”

“What, so you can go swimming to your doo--”

Moana snarled, and turned to glare into Tamatoa’s closest eye. “I. SAID. NOW.”

The giant crab winced, taken aback. “All right, all right,” he said, letting her drop in the water. Normally she’d have protested that wasn’t quite what she meant, but it wasn’t the right moment for technicalities. She stood in the water, pushing her hair off her face, and looked up at Tamatoa.

“We must go help him.”

“Do we _have_ to?” he all but whined.

Moana gritted her teeth. “You want treasure, right? It’s right there on that ship,” she snapped. “You take it, I take Maui, and we’re all happy.”

“Sure, but can’t we wait until they, say, cut off one of his limbs or--”

“We had a deal,” Moana cut her off, then made a terrible effort not to yell and to sound as calm and _disappointed_ as possible. “I thought you were a crab of your word.”

He reared back as though struck, and scowled. “Are you trying to make me feel guilty?”

Moana held back the urge to scream at him that she wouldn’t need to try if he had any honor at all, and forced herself to stay calm. “Please,” she said instead. “I need your help.”

A scoff. “What happened to Miss I Restored the Heart of Te Fiti?”

“I never said I did it all on my own. I needed help - _everyone_ needs help at some point.”

Tamatoa didn’t seem convinced. “I never needed anybody’s help,” he pointed out, a challenging note in his voice.

 _But you need ours to find your treasure,_ she thought, knowing better than saying it aloud. “Maui put you back upright instead of leaving your helpless, didn’t he?” she said instead.

Tamatoa lifted a claw and opened his mouth. Moana raised an eyebrow. Tamatoa closed his mouth and lowered his claw, snapping it shut. “... I guess,” he conceded, looking away. Moana hesitated for a moment, then she stepped forward and placed a hand on his claw.

“Look. Let’s just go get Maui back. You can keep whatever treasure we find there, and we’ll call it even. Also,” she added lightly, “you’ll get to remind him of _this_ every time you want.”

Tamatoa’s eyestalks shifted back towards her. “That _is_ a good point.”

“Imagine that - getting to remind him that you just saved his life,” Moana pressed on. “And of course I’ll be right there to point out how _amazing_ you looked like while doing it.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t _really_ think I’m amazing. I’m not even shiny anymore,” he added, the whiny quality back in his voice.

Saying that she had found him anything but amazing when he was covered in treasure as well didn’t seem like the best possible move, so she didn’t. “Well, I do think you're--"

"If you say _crabulous,_ I'm out of here."

"... Right. Well, if that's what you think _I_ think, this is your chance to change my mind. And get some treasure. _And_ rub this in Maui’s face for the next thousand years. What do you have to lose? Unless, of course, you’re afraid of the Kakamo--”

“Fine, _fine,_ enough,” Tamatoa cut her off. “You had me at ‘treasure’, anyway. No need to overdo it,” he grinned, and lowered himself to the closest they could get to eye level. “You make good points, human. Have I already said I’m glad I didn’t eat you?”

“Once or twice. So, are we going?”

Tamatoa nodded, and picked her up. This time, Moana let him, and moments later he had placed her right behind the top of his head. They both turned back to the fog; it was coming closer and closer, and they could hear the cheers and drumming coming from it. Celebrating the fact they had brought down Maui, no doubt. Holding onto the base of one of Tamatoa’s antennae - he didn’t seem to even notice her grip - Moana hoped with all her heart that they hadn’t done anything irreparable to him yet.

“You got a plan, Smart One?”

“I think I do.”

“Does it involve a song?”

“... What?”

“Your plan. Do I get to sing a song? Come to think of it, you never told me if you liked--”

“Let’s… just focus on the rescue part,” she cut him off, and glanced at the water between them and the approaching ship. “So. You know that thing you do to attract fish…?”

* * *

That, Maui decided, was not part of the plan.

All right, so he’d had no plan to begin with - but if he had, that wouldn’t have been part of it.

“Hey! HEY! That’s mine! Put that down! Put it--” he trailed off with a groan when the obvious happened: the bunch of Kakamora who had been trying to work together to lift his fishhook lost their balance and fell crashing down on the deck. Still wrapped in the net, unable to move thanks to however many darts they had managed to stick in him, Maui rolled his eyes.

“Just give up. It won’t work for any of you. Give it back, and I might be merciful - hey! HEY! You get off me!” he protested when a couple of Kakamora began bouncing on his stomach, causing Mini Maui to uselessly shake a fist at them. He tried to shake them off, but of course he could move nothing except for his eyes and mouth. And his tattoo, which were not very helpful at the moment.

Awesome. Absolutely awesome.

“GET OFF ME!”

The bellow had the only result of making a couple of them snicker, while a couple more approached with spears. Maui glared at them.

“Okay, this is the last offer. If you want to get away from here all in one piece-- ow! Hey! Stop that! Ouch!”

More laughter, and a couple more Kakamora approached to prod him with their spears, but before they could come close enough there was a cry, and they all turned away from Maui. Under his perplexed gaze, they all rushed to the opposite side of the ship to look down, chattering among themselves and entirely forgetting about him. What were they staring at?

_Well, whatever it is, it’s not me. I must make my move before they turn their attention back._

Except that he couldn’t move, and that made things all the more complicated. Maui bit back a grunt as he tried with all his might to move, but his body stayed limp and unresponsive, and he could only look helplessly at his hook, lying on the floor and forgotten about. Last time he’d been on the receiving end of one of those darts, courtesy of the Ocean, he’d been paralyzed for hours; now it would probably take even longer for him to recover any mobility, and the Kakamora wouldn’t be distracted for that lon--

“They won’t be distracted for long,” someone whispered above him, and the next moment someone was getting the net off him, or trying to, some seawater dripping down on him. Of course Maui knew who it had to be before he even glanced up, but he did all the same.

“How did you get here?” he mouthed, and Moana grinned down at him.

“I had a lift,” was the reply, equally silent. She pushed the net off him and lifted an arm over her shoulders, but of course she couldn’t pull him up: he was far too heavy. Back in Lalotai he’d been able to walk with her help, but now he was a dead weight she couldn’t move. She realized it almost right away, and leaned him down. “Okay. Plan B,” she said, and looked up, towards the Kakamora. They were still looking down into the water, mesmerized, when she called out.

“Hey!”

They turned back as one, of course, and immediately lifted the spears.

“... Whatever Plan B is,” Maui found himself saying, “It would be best to get on with it no--”

Moana smiled at the Kakamora, giving no sign of having heard him. “Hello again, guys. Meet my little friend.”

_Wait. Wait a sec--_

The entire ship rocked as though hit by a tidal wave, and the unmistakable crack of wood breaking filled the air. The Kakamora screamed. Maui was thrown against the side of the ship, while Moana managed to maintain her balance, snatching a spear from the hands of the closest Kakamora and kicking it away in the same motion. Not a bad move and probably one Maui would have cheered in other circumstances, but at the moment he was a bit too taken by the sight of a very, _very_ familiar claw planting itself in the middle of the deck. The next moment Tamatoa was emerging from the sea to peer onto the ship, dripping water and… wait, why did he look so perplexed?

“Human?” he called out, the frown still on his face. The flurry of activity on the deck stopped. The Kakamora stilled and stared at him. Moana stilled and stared at him. Maui stayed still - not much choice there - and stared at him.

“What is it?” Moana finally said, breaking the sudden and confused silence.

“You meant me, right?”

“Huh?”

“Your little friend? That was the signal I was supposed to attack, right? Or was I supposed to wait for another cue?”

“Er… no, this was fine.”

Maui blinked. The Kakamora kept shifting their gazes between Moana and Tamatoa, completely silent, weapons down. Tamatoa shrugged, a claw still planted into the ship and seemingly paying no attention to any of them. “Oh, good. It was just kind of confusing, talking about a little friend, and I’m not _little,_ am I?”

“Well… no, you’re not.”

“Why did you call me little, then?”

“It’s just… can we talk about this later?” Moana asked, gesturing to the whole situation - the Kakamora, Maui's motionless form, his fishhook on the floor - with her free hand. “Possibly when we’re done here?”

Tamatoa blinked, then seemed to perk up. “Oh! Right! The rescue thing. Hey, Maui! I’m saving your life here! Are you taking note?”

“Believe me, I’m not forgetting this moment anytime soon,” Maui said drily. As chaos exploded around him again, the Kakamora clearly not willing to just surrender their ship to a giant crab, he sighed and closed his eyes, letting his head drop. He would never let him hear the end of it, would he? Of course he wouldn’t. Come to think of it, maybe it would be for the best to just roll into the water and drow--

_CRACK._

The ship rocked again, this time a lot more violently, and Maui was thrown across the deck before he felt something beneath him shatter. Moana’s cry - “Maui!” - reached him only one instant before he fell.

_Oh, come on! I didn’t really mean--_

The thought was cut short by the impact against water, like a violent slap, and the sensation of sinking like a stone. He tried to move out of instinct, tried to swim, but of course he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do anything except stare up at the surface, hold his breath, and sink.


	7. Scars

The first time Tamatoa wrecked a ship, it was a complete accident. Well, for the most part.

He’d just been taking a stroll in shallow waters around his island, not really paying attention to whatever was going on in the surface, when something had scraped against the top of his shell. It hadn’t been enough to knock him over, but definitely enough to startle him.

Had he paused for a moment to think, he’d have known what had happened - a ship had scraped on his shell as if it were a rock too close to the surface - and done what he’d been taught to do a long, long time ago in case humans were nearby: keep out of sight. Not always an easy task, but being in the ocean made it simpler: a few moments of digging in the sand and he would mostly disappear, showing nothing but a shell that one could mistake for… well, a rock too close to the water.

But that time, he was too taken aback to hide and did the exact opposite: he lifted his head to look out of the water. And was immediately hit in the head by a coconut.

“HEY! What gives?” he yelled, but his voice was immediately covered by screams. What had hit him turned out to be a ship, and a large on at that, with several humans in it, all young and healthy. Probably explorers, the kind Maui had told him about once, sent by their people to look for more islands and return to tell what they had found. Of all places touched by the ocean, it looked like they just had to stumble on him. Go figure.

And now it looked like they wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon. The bow of their ship was rather heavily damaged on the left, his shell far harder than wood, and it caused the whole thing to lean on one side. It was nothing the humans couldn’t fix, he supposed, but they weren’t even looking at the damage: they were all shouting at him, picking up weapons to shake in the air in some kind of dumb display of strength.

“Seriously? It was _you who_  hit me!” he snapped, but of course he knew that wasn’t the issue at all. Back when there were humans on his island, they had reacted the same way when they had first spotted him - a long time ago, when he was much smaller than he was now and had been entirely on his own only for a few months, his Gran gone... wherever the dead go, he supposed, as well as in his stomach. They had spotted him, and he’d had to hide away for months or even a year or two, until they had left the island for greener pastures.

 _They kept trying to skewer me with their arrows and pointy sticks all the time. To test their courage or something,_ he had told Maui once, a long time ago. _Let them see you one time and bam! They have a new stupid Coming of Age tradition to hunt the monster, and you become target practice._

Maui had been sympathetic at the time, but now it occurred to Tamatoa that, had he been there and had they not known each other, he would have done precisely the same thing. Maybe he’d have even managed to get him, and he would have laughed while showing off the feat. Because… because…

_‘Cause Lalotai monsters are fun to clobber. That’s why. Also, it’s a hero thing._

_Of course that doesn’t apply to you. You’re my buddy._

But he wasn’t _their_ buddy, was he now? That was why they were already bringing out the arrows and spears, throwing them against him time and time again despite the fact they bounced right off his carapace. Tamatoa lifted a claw to protect his eyes after a spear came a bit too close to one of them, and scowled.

 _It’s not worth the trouble, Tinytoa,_ Gran’s voice echoed somewhere in the back of his mind, with that mild mocking tone that never left her and that drew him up the wall every time. _They’re frail little things who feel threatened. Hide away from trouble until trouble stops looking for you._

He was about to do just that, honest, and he _almost_ did, but two things happened at the same time. First, the sun reflected off one of the baskets on the ship’s floor, causing him to realize it was filled with something really, _really_ shiny. And, secondly, something hard - a rock thrown at him with a sling, he would assume later - hit him straight in the left eye as soon as he lowered his claw to take a better look.

“Ow!” he yelped, and reared back. The pain was sharp as it was unexpected, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t take, and would subside in a few minutes. Deep down, he knew that. But what he _really_ wasn’t willing to tolerate was mockery… and the cheer that followed his yelp sounded _all the world_ like mockery.

_‘Cause Lalotai monsters are fun to clobber._

When Maui had said that, not too long ago, he’d felt uncomfortable. Now that he thought about it again, it made him furious.

_Well then. My turn to have fun._

The ship was doomed within minutes. Everything shiny and in any way valuable on it became his. The fate of the humans who had been on board was absolutely none of his business. Maybe some passing boat would find them clinging to the remains of their ship. Most likely, no one would find them. Maybe they’d drown. Maybe they’d wind up on some nearby island. Maybe they’d become a shark’s dinner.

Honestly, Tamatoa didn’t care. Maui probably would, the bleeding heart, but what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him and really, he wouldn’t like humans so much if they tried to kill him on sight. Plus, there were the shinies - plenty of pearls, some golden arm bands, mother-of-pearl bracelets, necklaces, shiny stones and whatnot - that he could add to his collection, taking all of his attention. It was more than he could usually find in a year spent searching the bottom of the ocean, unless he found a sunken ship by chance.

It had never occurred to him before that he could actually help his luck by sinking ships himself, but the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. Why not, after all? There was no love lost between him and humans, and as far as he was concerned they had started it. Taking their stuff was easy now, and it was actually kind of fun.

“‘Cause humans are fun to clobber, too,” he said to no one in particular, holding up a golden armband and grinning up at it. “And I’m _never_ going to hide again.”

* * *

Until the moment she’d seen Maui fall off board, Moana had thought she had it all under control.

To be fair, everything had been going as planned. The sea wasn’t too deep between them and the ship; Tamatoa could approach it while keeping his head - and her, by extension - out of the water, and they’d been within swimming distance in minutes without any of the Kakamora noticing. Whether it had been because of the fog shrouding them or the fact they were all focused on Maui, Moana wasn’t sure - but either way, it worked for them.

“Close enough?” Tamatoa had asked. Something about that conspiratorial whisper made him sound a lot like a child playing hide and seek, and she was unable to hold back a smile.

“Yes. I’ll swim from here. Remember your part?”

“Be shiny and get all the attention. It’s what I do best, babe,” Tamatoa had said, and with that he had lowered himself, getting underwater and leaving Moana to swim to the ship. The plan from there was simple: Tamatoa would place himself right on the ship’s course where the water was relatively shallow, hiding under the sand and leaving only the very middle of his shell - the part covered in shining trinkets and gold - visible. While it was a far cry from the amount of treasure that had been there before, hopefully it would be enough to get the Kakamora’s attention for as long as it took Moana to climb on board and find Maui.

Once she had found him, unless she could by some miracle move him, it would be time for Tamatoa to do something more than looking shiny. Which he did - in a pretty impressive way, once the confusion over that ‘little friend’ was cleared. The Kakamora immediately tried to retaliate, throwing spears and darts at him, but none of it helped: they bounced off his carapace and skin without even leaving a scratch. Tamatoa just laughed it off before lifting his other claw, bringing it down on the ship like a huge club, causing the deck to crack and splinter. All in all, everything was going well.

Except that the ship’s deck just had to crack right beneath Maui, sending his paralyzed body to fall down into the ocean.

“Maui!”

As the ship swayed beneath her, Moana moved as fast as she could: she ducked under a net a Kakamora tried to throw at her, got another out of her way with a sideway slash of the spear she was still holding, and made it to the edge of the ship, where some rope had been left on the floor.

Perfect.

Crouching down just on time to avoid being hit by a dart - the Kakamora who shot it at her was seemingly obliterated the next instant, when one of the ship’s masts collapsed on him and several others - Moana tied the rope to one end of the spear before turning back.

“Tamatoa! Catch!”

The giant crab looked back at her just as she threw the spear, and immediately caught it with one claw, the other planting itself in the side of the ship. He was strong enough to snap the spear in two rather than grabbing it, of course, but Moana had learned first-hand how surprisingly careful he could be with his pincers and, thankfully, he was smart enough not to snap it. He caught it, looked at it - seemingly unaware of the spears, darts and even parts of the ruined ship that were still being thrown against him by the now frantic Kakamora - and then gave Moana a quizzical glance. He didn’t seem to have noticed Maui falling in the water. “What--”

“No time to explain! When I pull three times, pull us up!” she called out, and dove in the ocean with the end of the rope held tightly into her hand.

_Please, let me find Maui. Let the rope be long enough. Let this be enough._

For a few moments she saw nothing but the sand Tamatoa was lifting by just moving on the seabed, but she forced herself to ignore the rising sense of panic and dove deeper. He had fallen around there, she was sure of it, so he must be there… he _must_ be...

And there he was, right below her. Unable to move, he was sinking quickly, face towards the ocean floor; Moana could see his back, his hair moving weightlessly in the water, revealing the one tattoo he was unwilling to talk about. The accursed beginning to his story, the tale he was hoping to rewrite, ready to fight his way into the Underworld to have answers.

But unless she could reach him now, he wouldn’t need to fight to get in there. He would just need to _die._

The thought was horrifying, and it spurred her to swim downwards as quickly as she could, until the pressure in her ears became painful. She didn’t slow down - just pinched her nose shut with her free hand and blew hard to counter it - and she was so close now, so close--!

Then the rope ended, and Maui was barely beyond her reach.

_NO!_

Moana stretched her arm as much as she could, most of the air she had left in her lungs escaping her mouth in a frustrated scream, silenced by water. She was close, _so_ close, but not close _enough._ She could reach him if she let go of the rope, but then what? He was too big and heavy, a dead weight, and she could never be able to pull him up, not even enough to grasp the rope again.

… Or could she? She was so close, she could try - had to try - but she only got one shot at this, and if she failed--

_Please! Help! Ancestors, Ocean, anyone, please…!_

There was a movement behind her her, causing the water and sand to swirl before something silvery-grey appeared below her, below Maui - a giant manta that, she immediately knew, was not just a manta at all.

_Gramma Tala!_

She couldn’t call out, but of course she heard her; she always did. Moana forgot even the urge to breathe as she watched the manta swim up towards her, pushing Maui’s motionless body up… just a bit more… just another few inches…!

The ocean swallowed Moana’s cry of triumph when her hand closed around Maui’s wrist. One last glance to the manta, one full of thanks, and he pulled the rope with all her strength, three times in quick succession. For a moment, nothing happened - and then, Tamatoa pulled back.

It was sudden as it was painful: her shoulders were definitely going to feel that for days to come. But she kept holding onto the rope, kept holding onto Maui, as they were both pulled upwards at almost incredible speed, towards the surface and then through it. Moana found herself blinded by the sun, drawing in desperate gulps of air, and still holding onto Maui’s wrist with all her might. She heard him coughing and sputtering beneath her, and that was enough to make the pain in her shoulders entirely worth it.

“You okay?”

Moana blinked away seawater, and looked around. Tamatoa was holding them up in front of his face, causing them to dangle at an impressive height; somewhere below the Kakamora were still yelling and trying to get Tamatoa off their wrecked ship, but what Moana was truly worried about was the fact Maui’s wet wrist was starting to slip from her grip.

“Put us down,” she managed. Maybe she should have added ‘not in the water’ for the sake of clarity, if anything because it was Tamatoa she was speaking to, but it turned out not to be necessary: he put them both down on a piece of wood he must have torn off the ship, large enough to make a rudimentary raft for her and Maui.

Moana would have liked nothing more than resting down, giving her arms some respite, but instead she knelt over Maui and turned him so that his face would be up.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her breathing still short.

Maui coughed up some more water, then gave her a reasonable approximation of a smirk. “Like new,” he croaked. “Got you in a lot of trouble, didn’t I? I’m so--”

Tamatoa turned his gaze towards him, an impossibly wide grin on his face. “Hey, Maui! Are you watching this? Just in case you were missing out how I’m saving your life, man! Would be nice to hear a _thank you_ just about now!”

Maui scowled and seemed about to snap back something that was most likely _not_ a thank you, but he suddenly closed his mouth, eyes widening, the instant his gaze fell on something behind Tamatoa. Moana followed his gaze, and for a moment she was sure she’d just felt her heart leap in her throat.

Tamatoa’s attack had broken most of the ship’s masts, and now the jagged end of one of them was pointed towards him like a huge, splintered arrow; the Kakamora had used those moments of respite to create a contraption not unlike a bow, tying ropes to the remains of their masts. Now they were pulling that gigantic arrow back, all together, and the moment they released it--

 _My shell’s too tough,_ Tamatoa had told - well, sang - to her once, and it was true. If that projectile hit his shell, it would shatter causing nothing worse than maybe a minor scratch and no real damage. But they were not aiming for his shell at all: they were aiming for the unprotected back of his head. His skin was thick enough to repel spears and darts, but she instinctively knew that thick skin wouldn’t be enough this time.

 _“Tamatoa!”_ she cried out, the very same instant Maui bellowed.

“BEHIND YOU!”

The smug look turned into alarm, and Tamatoa turned just as the Kakamora shrieked and released the arrow. The huge mast flew through the air, past Tamatoa’s head, and for a split second Moana thought that it had missed. Then she saw the blue fluid flying through the air, falling down into the water and splattering on the improvised raft she and Maui were onto; she knew what it meant. She knew what a crab’s blood looked like, and thus she realized that Tamatoa had been hit one instant before she heard the scream.

It was loud, frighteningly so, to the point the explosive cheers of the Kakamora could barely be heard until it died down. Under Moana’s horrified gaze, Tamatoa lost his grip on the ship and slipped halfway into the water, causing a wave that made the raft rock dangerously. She held on, gripping Maui’s motionless arm tighter to keep him from slipping into the water, and watched with wide eyes the blood streaming into the sea.

The mast had missed his head, but its splintered end had grazed at the back of his neck, gouging a deep wound across it; not deadly, maybe - _oh ancestors please don’t let it be deadly_ \- but bad enough to make him lose blood in buckets. Tamatoa faltered, but he did not go underwater as Moana had feared. He managed to keep standing, and when he turned to them he wasn’t grimacing in pain as she would have expected. Somehow, the look on his face was even worse: a kind of distant confusion, like he wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened. He stared at her, pupils blown wide, and Moana could almost read the question in them.

_Human, why am I hurting?_

Then his eyes became glazed over, like he was unable to really see them, and he swayed. Moana winced at Maui’s sudden scream.

“No, no, NO! Hey, Crabcake! Don’t go and faint now! Don’t you dare!”

Tamatoa blinked, as though the words had hit him physically, and narrowed his eyes to put them into focus. He was mostly back in the water now, legs on the sand and only one claw still holding onto the ship, but that terrifying faraway look was gone from his eyes.

“It hurts,” he whined. “They _hit_ me! They…” a pause, then he blinked again and, to Moana’s utter relief, he scowled. Anger looked much better on him than confusion did, at least as long it wasn’t directed towards them. “How _dare_ they hit me?”

Maui laughed. It was a jarring, sudden sound that caused Moana to wince. “Well, what did you expect them to do? Sit back and take it?” he called out, and grinned. “C’mon, Crabby, you put up a better fight than _this_ when it was against me! Go and give them hell!”

“Huh. Guys?”

Tamatoa’s scowl deepened. His eyes stayed fixed on Maui, and he entirely ignored Moana. Both of them did, really. “You don’t get to tell me what to do!”

“Guys?” Moana called out again. Above them, on the ship, a second arrow-mast was being pointed down - straight at her and Maui. The moment it was released, it would likely obliterate both of them. “I don’t think this it the moment--”

Two things happened in quick succession: the mast was released, and Tamatoa turned, his claw snapping shut. It caught the mast in mid-air and broke it in two, shattered pieces of wood raining down into the water. He let it fall, turned fully back to the ship - and to the Kakamora, now all out of masts to shoot - and _snarled._

Most of the time, the meaning of whatever sounds the Kakamora emitted to communicate was entirely lost to Moana. That one time, however, there was absolutely no mistaking the meaning of the collective sound that left them.

_Uh-oh._

* * *

The return to the island where Moana had left her boat, as well as Heihei and Pua, was very slow. By the time they made it to the shore, the sun was already starting to climb down the sky - much of the day gone.

Not that Moana was up to complain at all and, for once, neither did Maui. He was alive for one, and the effect of the paralyzer starting to wear off enough to allow him to sit up; apparently, the amount injected didn’t necessarily mean the effects would last longer. Plus, his hook hadn’t been lost in the confusion. The Kakamora were out of their way, having abandoned the ship in countless tiny rafters and rowing towards the horizon as quickly as they could the moment they had realized they couldn’t possibly win that fight.

Now, Maui and herself were the only ones on the ship - mostly wrecked and hardly floating, but still filled with treasure, as she could tell once she went to take a look under the deck - that Tamatoa was stubbornly dragging with him towards the shore, even now that it touched the sand below it.

“I beat them. I get to keep their stuff,” Tamatoa had snapped the moment she had tried to convince him it would be easier to just leave it, and she’d decided not to pursue the matter, not to point out that he was hurt and had lost a lot of blood. He was clearly aware of both things, but even that wasn’t enough to change his mind. He would take their treasure, or he’d collapse trying to leave with it.

He did not collapse, but as he came out of the water, dragging the ship on the beach for several meters, Moana could tell he was just barely standing. From the bow of the ship she got a close enough view of the wound on the back of his neck, and it didn’t look good: it was deep, at least a couple of arms long and one arm wide, with splinters larger than her forearm protruding from it. Had the Kakamora aimed just a little lower, they would have skewered his neck from side to side. The thought was enough to make her shudder.

“How ugly does it look?” Maui asked, coming to stand by her side. He had to lean heavily on his fishhook, as it would likely take him a few more hours to move as normal again, but at least it was progress. Rather than waiting for a reply, he took a look himself and grimaced. “Fine. _Very_ ugly,” he muttered.

“I _heard_ you,” Tamatoa snapped. He let go of the ship, clearly having decided it was far enough on the beach to keep it safe from the rising tide, and staggered a few steps away on the sand, muttering something on how he _really_ could have used another leg right now, ‘so thanks for nothing, Maui’.

Maui scowled, and entirely ignored the jab. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t talking about yo--” he began, but he didn’t get to finish the sentence: the next moment Tamatoa’s legs failed him, and he fell on the sand like a tree struck by lighting.

Moana climbed down the ship in moments, heart beating somewhere in her throat, the pain in her shoulders completely forgotten, and ran up to him. “Tamatoa?” she called out, and breathed out a sigh of relief when he opened his eyes to peer down at her.

“The treasure on the ship is mine. Tell Maui it’s mine,” he all but whined. He sounded tired and weak, but awake and not too dizzy.

“Sure,” Moana said, forcing herself to smile like nothing was wrong at all, and approached. “Look, I am just going to climb up a moment to check--”

“No! It hurts!” Tamatoa protested, trying to shift away. He didn’t move more than a few inches.  “Don’t touch it.”

Someone has to pull out those splinters, Moana thought, but it didn’t seem the best thing to say at the moment. “I won’t touch anything. I just want to take a look.”

“Don’t be a chicken. That role’s already taken,” Maui spoke up from behind her. He had somehow managed to clamber down the ship and was walking up to them, still using his hook as a crutch. “You’ve got splinters to get rid of, and the wound needs to be cleaned out.”

Tamatoa scowled at him, although he didn’t move, and Moana held back a groan.

_Please no. Please don’t start._

But of course they _did_ start. As always.

“You mind your own business!”

“And let you cause your own death? Would love to, but maybe later. Let us see to your--”

“No! Don’t come any closer! This is all your fault!”

“No it isn’t!”

“If you hadn’t gone and got caught--”

“I was trying to get _your_ damn treasure, and no one asked you to come help me ou--”

“The human did!”

“Well, she shouldn’t have!”

“Hey! I was just trying to help--”

“And _besides,_ I had everything perfectly under control.”

“No you didn’t! I saved your life and now you _owe_ me!”

“I owe you nothing!”

“Human! Tell him he--”

“Really now? Is this what the mighty Tamatoa is going to do from now one when crossed? Whine for the human to back you up?”

“Maui, I think that’s eno--”

“So what? You do that all the time! You’re just about the _last_ person who can lecture anybody on getting validation from huma--”

“ENOUGH! BOTH OF YOU!”

The scream was loud enough to make her throat ache, but most importantly it was loud enough to make them both fall silent and turn to her. Suddenly, they looked all the world like chastised kids.

Good.

“Can you _pretend_ to be older than five for ten minutes?” she snapped, stomping closer to both. “Just. Ten. Minutes.”

Tamatoa blinked. “But I am a lot older than--” he began, only to trail off when she turned to glare in his left eye.

“That was a figure of speech. Now, you be quiet. And you,” she added, turning to Maui with her hands on her waist, “You’re going to thank him.”

Maui stared at her like she’d just suggested him to walk straight into his mouth. “But--”

“Now. He saved your life and you _know_ it.”

“Hah! Yeah, tell him how it--”

_“Quiet.”_

Tamatoa fell quiet. Maui stayed silent for a few moments, too, a stubborn scowl on his face. Moana held his gaze. He scowled deeper. She tapped her foot on the ground. _Something_ had to give - and, in the end, that something was Maui. Because of course he was stubborn, but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew that Tamatoa was right: he had saved his life.

And she’d learned in Lalotai that, whenever he found himself in that kind of debt, Maui wasn’t above acknowledging it.

“Thank you,” he finally mumbled, looking away. Moana nodded, and looked back at Tamatoa.

“There. Happy now?” she asked, fully expecting him to gloat, or to say he hadn’t heard clearly and that Maui should absolutely repeat that a bit louder. Instead, he said nothing. He just stared at Maui, blinked, and then stared some more.

Moana frowned. “Hello?” she called out, waving her hand. “Did you hear that?”

For a moment, Tamatoa said nothing. Then, “... He said thank you.”

Maui rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, I did. Good you were paying attention, because I won’t be repeating it--”

“This can’t be right,” Tamatoa cut him off, eyestalks inching closer. “What were those darts laced with?”

Moana raised an eyebrow, not really knowing what to say. Maui, on the other hand, laughed, and Tamatoa frowned. “Yes. Must be the darts,” he muttered. Maui snickered for a few more moments before speaking again.

“Hah! If that’s what you want to think, works for me. Now let me take a look at that wound,” he added, leaving the hook behind to start climbing up Tamatoa’s shell. Or try to, because his control over his legs still wasn’t too great, and Tamatoa flinched away.

“No! Human! Tell him not to hurt me!”

“What, don’t you trust my delicate touch?”

“Not in a million years.”

“... Well. You _might_ have a point,” Maui conceded. “But there are splinters there that need to be removed and--”

“No there aren’t!”

“How about you check yourself?”

Tamatoa scowled, but he proceeded to do just that. With a groan and what seemed to cost him a terrible effort, he lifted his head and turned his eyestalks back. It allowed him hardly more than a glimpse to the back of his neck, but what little he saw must have been enough, if the way he whimpered before letting his head fall back on the sand was of any indication.

“I see you got it. Not something you’d want to get into with your claws, is it?” Maui said, and began climbing up Tamatoa’s shell. It took him some effort and more time than it would have taken him if his limbs weren’t still rather stiff, but he managed, and Tamatoa didn’t attempt to get him off himself: he just squeezed his eyes shut and stayed still. Moana put a hand on his claw, not really expecting him to feel the touch at all, and looked up. Maui was out of sight, but she was hoping he’d at least say something. And, after a pause, he did.

“Well, I have good news and bad news. Bad news, this looks bad.”

Moana bit her lower lip. “And the good news?”

“It happened to him instead of us.”

_Oh. Great._

“Can you pull out the splinters?”

Tamatoa whimpered something that sounded a lot like ‘don’t’, but Maui gave no sign of having heard him. And he had a point: those splinters needed to come out. They all knew it.

“Sure can. You’re going to bleed some more, Crabcake, just so you know and don’t freak out, but it won’t be too bad. We’re going to need lots of clean water and lauti leaves to clean this mess, but I bet we’re going to find plenty of water on the ship and hey, lauti’s everywhere here. You can pick up some while I--”

“No!” Tamatoa cut him off, eyes snapping open. They focused on Moana in what was a look of pure terror. “The human stays. Right? You’re gonna stay.”

“What, so she can hold your claw?”

“Mind your own business!”

Maui stayed silent for a moment, then Moana saw his face peering down at her. “... Wait, you’re _actually_ holding his claw?”

“I told you to mind your own--”

“Just pull out the splinters,” Moana cut him off, making a point to keep her hand on Tamatoa’s pincer.

Maui sighed, and disappeared from sight again. “Whatever. As long as he doesn’t chicken out,” he muttered, causing Tamatoa to give the most unconvincing scoff in history of unconvincing scoffs.

“H-HA! As if! I’m tougher than you’ll ever be, and I’m not-- AAAAAAGH!”

The scream was loud enough to make Moana cringe, and most birds on the island to fly away. It was followed by a moment of silence, then…

“Seriously, Crabcake? I didn’t even _touch_ anything yet.”

Tamatoa’s eye opened slowly, eyestalks turning to peer back. “... Ah. Well. I was. Making sure you were paying attention.”

“Yeah. I bet,” Maui muttered, and got to work.

To be totally fair, Tamatoa didn’t scream again: he stayed still, eyes tightly shut, and only let out an occasional hiss or whimper for the minutes it took Maui to get the splinters out of his wound. Once they were all out and Maui slid off his back, Tamatoa let out a shaky breath and seemed to finally relax - or go entirely limp, Moana wasn’t sure which.

Despite the fact Maui hadn’t taken advantage of the situation to cut off his head or anything of the sort, when it was time to pour water on the wound and then apply the poultice of disinfectant leaves on it he demanded - sort of; truth be told, it was closer to begging - Moana to do it instead. Maui shrugged it off, and went to start a fire

“It’s going to scar, isn’t it?”

Tamatoa had spoken quietly, with the small voice of someone who’s hoping for a negative answer but already knows that wouldn’t be the truth. Moana bit her lower lip, placing the last leaf they had down on the poultice covering the wound before talking. “Well, my grandma once told me that while journeys can leave a scar, scars can heal and--”

A scoff. “Oh, shut up. I don’t _care_ what your granny said. Didn’t I tell you before? She lied. About everything. ‘Cause that’s what old hags do, every single one of them.”

There was a bitterness in his voice that Moana couldn’t help but wonder about. Back in Lalotai, when he’d mocked her over her grandmother… in retrospect, that had been quite a wild guess from his part. She had told him nothing about her grandmother’s teachings, just that her necklace had been hers. And yet he’d been oddly specific, mocking her for believing her ‘lies’ on listening to her heart. And now, that comment - just _whose_ grandmother had he really been talking about?

“It’s going to scar and it’s going to look hideous, that’s all,” Tamatoa was saying, unaware of her thoughts.

“How about you think of it as a battle scar? Like Maui’s tattoos.”

“Pfft. A scar isn’t a tattoo. It’s hideous, I tell you. _I_ am going to be hideous. I’ll need _so_ much treasure to hide it!”

“Anyone can get covered in gold. How many can boast having done what you did today?” Moana asked, climbing down his arm and coming to stand on top of a huge pincer. Standing there, with his head resting in the sand, she was almost at his same eye level. “You’re going to look like someone who took on a ship full of Kakamora and won. And I think _that’s_ rather amazing. ”

Tamatoa blinked at her, taken aback, then he scowled and looked away with another scoff. But his expression had changed for one moment - one _brief_ moment, sure, but she hadn’t missed it. “I don’t care what you think.”

Moana shrugged. “Well. Since you don’t care and will sulk either way, I’m sure you won’t mind me saying what _else_ I think.”

“I don’t care either way.”

_Well, I’m not hearing a no._

“What I think is that you care a great deal about what _everyone_ thinks about you,” she said. Tamatoa kept looking away, saying nothing, but his frame tensed just slightly, and Moana knew she was right. When she spoke again, her voice was very quiet. “And I also think your grandmother tried to tell you that you shouldn’t.”

_You told Maui that his armor isn’t hard enough. Is yours?_

There was a moment of silence, then Tamatoa grunted. “And here I thought you were smart,” he said, and shut his eyes. “Go away.”

“If you need anything--”

“I just want to sleep. Get lost.”

Moana knew better than to press on, and just jumped off his pincer. “Fine. Try to rest,” she told him, getting no reply at all. She sighed inwardly and went to sit at the fire Maui had started, wondering if Tamatoa really thought anybody would believe for even a moment that he’d fallen asleep in seconds.


	8. History

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By unpopular demand (read: no one fucking asked) here’s two flashbacks at the price of one. Neither of them happy.  
> You’re welcome.

For centuries, especially after finding himself stranded on an island with plenty of time to think and not much else, Maui would sometimes wonder how could he not realize Tamatoa had been the one behind the attacks.

As more and more humans spoke of missing ships and expeditions, of a monster raiding their villages in the cover of darkness to take anything valuable, he should have known right away. Everything, from the target - _treasure_ rather than food or the pleasure of hunt - to the locations, none of them far away from Tamatoa’s island, should have been one huge red flag with a dozen arrows on it, _all_ of them pointing towards his old friend. How could he not see it?

The answer was simpler than he would have liked: he hadn’t seen it because he hadn’t wanted to. It had to be some other monster, because why would Tamatoa do a such thing? He knew how important humans were to him. And he was his friend, or so he had thought, so of course he had dismissed the idea he may be responsible. It had been some other monster in the area Maui that would hunt down. That was it. It couldn’t be Tamatoa, because he was his buddy and he knew him well. He would _never,_ he had thought.

… Would he?

He would, and he _had._ The day Tamatoa made a mistake, raiding a village before sundown and allowing the villagers to see him and describe their attacker, Maui couldn’t tell what enraged him most: his actions, or the sense of betrayal.

_I trusted him!_

He stormed to the island Tamatoa had made his own, swam through the underwater entrance of his cave with that thought in mind pulsing like an infected wound through the disbelief. Part of him had hoped there could be some other explanation, that he would be proven wrong. For the first time in his entire life he’d welcome being wrong, if that meant he and Tamatoa would get to laugh together at the stupid thought he’d had - but those hopes were dashed the moment he reached the empty cave.

It was only _empty_ in the sense that Tamatoa was not there, because all kinds of treasure and shiny trinkets were scattered about. Far more than there had been last time he’d been there… and some of them, those at the very top of the pile, looked familiar even though he’d never seen them, because the villagers had described them. The Chief’s family heirlooms, shining with gold and gems, taken no more than three days earlier.

_It was him. All this time, it was him._

A sound of splashing water warned him that someone else was emerging from the sea into the cave, but he didn’t bother turning. He kept staring at the treasure, his grip on the handle of his fishhook tight.

“Hey, who’s-- oh, hey, Maui! About time you dropped by again! What are you doing here, man? If you think you’re going to drag me into another of your--”

Whatever Tamatoa was about to say next died in his throat when Maui turned, his face twisted with fury. His eyes moved slowly from his face to the treasure, then to his fishhook, then finally back to Maui. He straightened himself, the wide-eyed look of a child caught with his hands in the sweets jar fading into wariness. “Don’t you know it’s rude to just let yourself in--”

Maui let out a snarl, and hit the closest wall of the cave with his hook, causing the whole place to shake and small rocks and pebbles to rain down. Tamatoa yelped and took a few steps back, trying to say something, but Maui ignored whatever he babbled. It didn’t matter. There was one thing he wanted to hear from him, and one only.

“Why?” he snapped, taking a menacing step forward.

Tamatoa flinched back. “W-well, because it’s good form not to show up and--”

“Don’t even _try,_ Tamatoa,” Maui cut him off. The human’s pleas to do something to protect them - people who had seen their homes destroyed and heirlooms stolen, who had never seen their brothers and sisters return from what should have been a brief and easy voyage - still rang in his ears, along with his own rushing blood. “Tell me why.”

“Look, buddy, I don’t know what you’re talking--”

“I am not your buddy,” Maui cut him off again. “I am the hero of men. And I am also an idiot, because I trusted you and forgot what _you_ are.”

“... An old friend?” Tamatoa tried, his voice a bit weaker than before. He had taken a few more steps back, but now his rear was pressed against a stone wall, and there was nowhere for him to run - if not through Maui, who was not up to let him go anywhere until they had a good talk.

He scowled. “A monster,” he spat. “I was wrong thinking you were any different. Sinking ships, raiding villages--”

“I didn’t do anything!” Tamatoa protested, lifting his claws. “I--”

“They have _seen_ you, and you have their treasure in your cave!”

“Well, I… I just found it! And it could have been another like me they saw--”

“THERE ARE NO OTHERS!” Maui roared, causing him to flinch. “Do you really _still_ think there is anyone but you left? They’re all gone, thank the Gods - _good riddance_ of all of you!”

The fear on Tamatoa’s face vanished in a flash of anger. _“Don’t,”_ he warned, his voice clipped and cold, but Maui was beyond even hearing him.

“Unless you want me to finish the job nature started and butcher you where you stand, tell me _why_ you did it,” he growled, pointing his hook against him. His anger was barely in check and he knew, without a shadow of doubt, that if he’d been facing anyone else - any other monster except Tamatoa - he wouldn’t have bothered threatening: he would have simply delivered, and ensured he could never hurt a human ever again.

“Why?” Tamatoa repeated, and scowled. “Because treasure is wasted on them. Because I take what I want,” he said, and took a step forward. “Because I’m tired of having to stay out of sight. Because they’re fun to clobber and I look really, _really_ cool while doing it.”

Maui ground his teeth. “Cool? Have you gone mad? Humans are _helpless_ against you. None of those is a good enough reason--”

“Oh, but it’s a good reason to beat up a monster or two every once in a while, isn’t it?” Tamatoa shot back, and leaned closer. “Because it makes you look good and they’re fun to clobber. Why shouldn’t _we_ do the same? Why is everyone fair game except your darlings?”

“That has nothing to do--”

“Didn’t you go and steal fire because you figured your precious humans could use it? Killed a giant eel because it was inconveniencing them, and buried its guts to get coconut trees for them? Beat up the sun itself? Didn’t you chase monsters away from _their_ territory to make space for humans? Take treasure from the deep to give it all to _them,_ beating up everyone in your wa--”

“ENOUGH!”

Maui swung his hook, causing Tamatoa to yelp and make a hasty retreat. Maui glared up at him, eyes aflame. “This is nothing like anything I did! You only want to hoard treasure, while all _I_ did I did for humans--”

“No,” Tamatoa cut him off, his voice sharp. “You want to hoard _praise._ You want to show off. You like to think you’re so much better, but it’s all about yourself, ‘cause your mama left you to drown and you’re not over it. At least _I’m_ honest about-- ow!” he trailed off with a cry when Maui swung his hook again, and this time caught one of his claws.

“All you are is a COWARD! They stood _no chance_ against you!”

The blow caused the giant crab to scramble back, eyes wide, and lift both claws to protect his head, eyes darting around the cave. He was at a disadvantage in there, and he had to know it. The cave was large enough for him to sleep in and hoard his treasure, large enough to take a few steps, but not nearly enough for him to move around easily - not anymore. If a fight broke out, Tamatoa’s own size would work against him, giving Maui the upper hand almost immediately. And it was tempting, oh Gods, wasn’t it tempting, with fury burning in his chest and thudding in his head.

Yet, Maui made an effort to lower his hook and control his voice before speaking again. “Listen here and listen good, old buddy,” he all but growled. “You can count yourself lucky I considered you a friend at _any_ point, or else you’d be done for, here and now.”

“H-hah! I’d like to see you try--”

“No,” Maui cut him off. “No, you wouldn’t and you know it. So be thankful I will not do it and listen,” he added, taking a step forward. “I don’t want to hear another peep from you, or _about_ you, ever again. Which of course means that you’re _never_ to bother humans again. Because if you do, I’ll hear about it and I’ll make you regret it dearly. Is that clear?”

Tamatoa scoffed. “Well, who would have guessed. So I’m not the exception anymore, am I?”

“Believe me, the fact I’m not ending you here and now makes you very much an exception. Now, I won’t ask again. Did I make myself _perfectly_ clear?”

Tamatoa narrowed his eyes, giving him a look of pure malevolence. “Crystal,” he all but spat.

“Good,” Maui spat back. “I’ll be taking back the heirlooms you stole from the village you raided last, and if you try to stop me--” he began, gesturing towards the pile of treasure with his hook, but he trailed off when he realized something was wrong with said hook. It didn’t feel like it was the right weight, the right size or the right texture anymore, and… why was it _sticky?_

With a frown, Maui turned to look at the object he was holding in his hand, and screamed. It wasn’t his hook he was holding, not at all.

It was a severed crab leg, covered in blue blood.

* * *

“AH!”

Maui awoke with a scream in his throat that only came out as a choked out gasp because he’d tried to breathe in at the same time. He stared up at the stars, chest rising and falling fast, and it took him a few moments to realize where he was. He sat up, trying to breathe slowly, and to his relief Moana hadn’t stirred: she was sleeping only a few feet away, curled up next to the fire, her face turned towards the ocean. It was a relief: he really didn’t want to have to explain what had jolted him awake.

Purposely avoiding to turn in the general direction of the all-too-noticeable being currently sharing the island with them, Maui silently reached for a couple of logs, placed them in the fire to keep it from dying down before dawn, and settled back down to slee--

_“Nnnnh….”_

Maui immediately sat up as if he’d just rested on a needle, and turned to look to the spot where Tamatoa slept without even thinking about it. He was resting some distance away, but still close enough for some of the fire’s flickering light to show his features. He was screwing his eyes shut and shifting slightly in his sleep, his breath occasionally coming out in shuddering gasps and bioluminescence briefly flickering on and off. It looked like Maui wasn’t the only one unable to rest well that night.

 _Good,_ he thought. He tried to make himself lie back down, and go back to sleep.

Except that he couldn’t.

* * *

For centuries, especially after returning to Lalotai for the final time and making it his home - like he should have done centuries earlier, his Gran would have said - Tamatoa would stare at the stump where his leg should have been and wonder why hadn’t he taken Maui’s threat seriously enough.

He had known that he’d find out, even before he attacked that last ship, because of course another one going missing right in that area would be as good as a written confession, if he knew how to write to begin with. And of course he’d heard loud and clear what Maui had promised he’d do if he tried to pull that again - but hearing it was one thing, believing he would go through with it another. Sure, he had been mad, but hadn’t he seen him mad before? Of course he had. Maui was a bleeding heart when it came to people he knew, all bark and no bite. Tamatoa knew him well.

And besides, he was his buddy. He could threaten, but he would _never,_ he had thought.

… Would he?

He would, and he _had._ He’d come for him little before sunset, while he was idly catching fish in low water beneath the highest cliff of the island, and for the first time since Tamatoa knew him he had hardly wasted any words: a thundering growl had been the only warning he’d got before Maui had launched himself on him from the cliff above, hook in his fist and clearly meaning business.

“Wha-- hey!” Tamatoa had yelped, and lifted his pincers just on time. The blow threw him back, but he took it without damage. “What was that abo--”

“You know EXACTLY what that was about!” Maui roared, and attacked again - and then again and again, forcing Tamatoa back towards the rocky shore, raining down blow after blow. “I _told_ you humans are off limits, and you harmed them for the last time! I should have ended you last time instead of leaving you alive to do it again!”

For a moment, Tamatoa was unable to feel anything but incredulity; then, as he blocked another blow, said incredulity was washed away by anger. “Is that IT?” he snapped, and caught the hook in mid-air, blocking it with his claw. Maui snarled and tried to pull it back; Tamatoa resisted, glaring down at him. “Seriously? You’ve known me for thousands of years! I helped you slow down the sun for those useless, tiny, short-lived _things,_ and now you turn on me because a few of them are whining over lost treasure that was wasted on the--”

“You were _warned,_ and I was wrong to trust you,” Maui snarled, and managed to pull the hook free. Still, he didn’t try to strike again - not physically, at least. “You’re not worth the _worst_ of them, you bottom-feed--”

It took less than an instant for anger to turn into boiling fury, and Tamatoa struck sideways, catching Maui on the side of the head and throwing him ashore. It would have been enough to kill any of his precious humans, but Maui wasn’t one of them anymore and he was immediately back on his feet, hook raised and teeth bared in a snarl.

 _Bring it,_ his expression said, and Tamatoa did.

They had traded blows many times, but never for real: while it had caused the occasional bruise or limp, neither of them had really gone into it with the intention to hurt. Now, they both fought to maim and kill - but despite all the viciousness they knew each other too well for the fight to end quickly. Maui was lighting-fast, almost impossible to hit, and Tamatoa’s shell was tough enough to withstand the blows, his pincers coming up to shield his unprotected head and neck before Maui could deal any serious damage. They kept clashing, tearing down trees and cracking rocks, neither of them gaining the upper hand as the sun went lower and lower at the horizon, making it look as though the sea and the sky were bleeding. For a moment Tamatoa thought it would never end, that they would stay locked in fight for all eternity, or until one of them collapsed - then, finally, a well-placed blow struck Maui’s hawk form out of the sky.

He was thrown on the ground, once again in his human hide, the hook knocked several feet away… too far for him to reach. With a cry that held rage and triumph in equal measure, Tamatoa slammed his claw down on him. He was fast, he could move quickly if he wanted to, but not quite _enough._ Maui rolled away right before Tamatoa struck, cracking the stone in the spot he’d been only an instant earlier, and that was it. Tamatoa never got another try.

For a moment all he felt was a grip on one of his legs, and then a pull. He heard a ripping noise, not unlike that of a large sail being torn, loud enough to cover Maui’s grunt of effort. He watched Maui staggering back with _something_ in his hands that, for a few moments, his mind failed - or refused - to recognize.

Then, suddenly, all that his brain could register was _pain._

There was a scream, one Tamatoa didn’t even realize had come from him. His own voice sounded alien to him. He staggered back, or tried to, but something was wrong, he couldn’t balance himself, he was hurting and leaning on one side and _something was wro--_

Tamatoa tried to catch his footing, but he had nothing to lean on on his front left, and agony kept him from thinking clearly enough, from trying anything to stop the fall. The ground rushed up to meet him, and he let out another scream when he hit his injured leg - _no it’s not injured it’s gone there’s nothing but a stump_ \- on the rocky ground.

Before him, Maui stood in silence and watched, Tamatoa’s leg still in his hands, twitching weakly. It was only when the blood reached his hands that he recoiled, as though snapped out of a trance, and stared at the severed limb he was holding. He shuddered, and dropped it as though it had caught fire. He stepped back, shaking his head, and turned to look at Tamatoa. Through the haze of pain, Tamatoa couldn’t even tell what the look of his face was.

 _Didn’t I tell you to keep away from humans, Tinytoa?,_ his Gran’s voice echoed somewhere in his mind. _If they catch you they’ll pull you out of the shell, crack you open and eat you up._

 _But Maui wouldn’t,_ he tried to protest, except that he couldn’t. He found himself unable to speak, unable to scream again, and he wasn’t even that sure anymore. He didn’t know what he’d do to him now. He didn’t know anything past the fact that he was hurting. Tamatoa closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, trying with all his might to move, at least to get his weight off the bleeding stump, but he couldn’t do it, his entire body numb with shock.

“Maui,” he managed. He wasn’t sure what he meant to say - whether he wanted to threaten him or to ask for help - but a threat now would be laughable, and help did not come. Instead there was pressure on his back, and he knew Maui was standing on him even before he opened his eyes and forced himself to turn his head and look up, too weak to fight anymore and unable to even speak, to beg or bargain.

Maui was holding the fishhook high above his head, against a red sky, ready to deliver the final blow. He looked every bit the hero he had made himself out to be all along, about to vanquish yet another monster, one of many. Had Tamatoa focused on his face, he would have noticed his expression was anything but a hero’s: it was that of someone who’d rather be anywhere else in the world. But he did not look closely enough, cobwebs of darkness starting to cloud his vision, and just let his head fall back on the ground with a whimper.

“I had _warned_ you,” Maui was saying somewhere above him. His voice shook but, once again, Tamatoa failed to notice.

 _This is it, this is how it ends,_ he thought. _He’ll take the treasure back to his precious humans and they’ll celebrate all night long. Maybe he’ll take me to them, too, so they can crack me open and eat me up. What’s a celebration without food?_

In reality, the fatal blow had never come. Above him, the hook had stayed lifted up in the air for several moments before it began to shake and, in the end, it had been lowered slowly.

“Just in case you ever think about harming humans again, _old buddy,_ I want you to remember this,” Maui had finally spoken, forcing his voice to stay cold. On his skin, Tamatoa’s effigy had disappeared from his chest to form again behind his shoulder, in an entirely different context, leaving Maui to hold onto the sun on his own. “From this moment on, every breath you take is a gift from me.”

In Tamatoa’s nightmares, however, things would often go differently, and that one time was no exception. Above him, Maui laughed and tightened his grip on the fishhook.

“No hard feelings, Crabby. It’s a hero thing,” he said, and brought it down on his neck, causing the world around him to explode in pain.

* * *

Throughout her life, Moana had been awakened in a variety of ways. By sunlight, by thunder and rain, by her people’s chattering and singing, by the sound of waves, by her stupid chicken being himself, by Pua’s snout against her neck, by the screech of Maui’s hawk form - just to name a few.

However, a blood-curling scream from a creature fifty feet tall was definitely on top of her Would Not Recommend list.

_“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGH!”_

“What the-- no, hey! What’s gotten into you? Stop it!”

Maui’s bellow reached her ears as soon as she sat up, along with Pua’s squeal when he ran off from her side to go hide behind her boat. He was standing before Tamatoa’s trashing form, struggling to keep him down as he scrambled in the futile attempt to get up. His bioluminescence, a threatening display last time she'd seen it, came on and off wildly and without control, a flurry of light and color making the sight all the more chaotic. Maui may have not been able to hold him down normally, but this was no normal situation: Tamatoa was weakened, and probably would have had trouble standing either way.

“Stay _down,_ idiot! You’ll just make your wound worse!”

Moana didn’t remember jumping on her feet, but she must have done so, because the next moment she was rushing by Maui’s side - although he seemed to need no help, not really. Tamatoa had stopped thrashing, and his screams had died down into a series of choked out gasps, claws reaching up to cover his head. When Maui tried to reach for him, he flinched.

“No,” he whined, and seemed to be trying - with very little success - to make himself smaller. The colors on him glowed brightly once more before dulling and then fading. “Don’t. Please please _please_ don’t.”

At a complete loss, Moana turned to look at Maui, who shook his head. He seemed as taken aback as she was. “I didn’t do anything, honest! I just tried to wake him up and he panicked.”

“Why did you…?”

“He looked like he was having a nightmare, or something, and I thought I should snap him out of--” Maui began, only to trail off when Tamatoa let out another whine - “It hurts!” - and tried to reach for the back of his neck. He immediately stepped forward to grab his claw. “No, wait - _don’t,_ right back at you. _Look at me,_ Crabcake. Don’t touch it. It’s only going to make it worse.”

Tamatoa froze at the touch, one pincer still up to cover his head. One eye looked down at Maui; in the faint light of the moon and the fire Moana could see it was wide with fear, like he was expecting Maui to tear off his arm any moment, or--

… Wait a minute.

_He looked like he was having a nightmare, or something._

_Not since I ripped off his leg._

_Please please_ please _don’t._

Moana found herself thinking back of the worst nightmare she’d had in her life, when she’d stood helplessly watching darkness consume her island, her people, her parents. She remembered the terror upon awakening, those horrible instants when she’d been unable to tell dream from reality. It had only lasted moments, but she’d been healthy and well - not barely recovering from a deep wound and the resulting blood loss. Tamatoa was far from well and, with Maui standing before him, he was still trapped in that limbo where reality and nightmare are one and the same.

“Maui? Let me handle this,” Moana called out, putting a hand on his arm. “Step back.”

Maui frowned. “Are you sure? He’s freaking out and--”

“He’s scared. I think it’s best if he doesn’t see you standing too close. Just trust me.”

He did, of course, and stepped back as she had asked. Moana drew in a deep breath, and put a hand down on Tamatoa’s pincer, well aware of the fact he could kill her in instants if he lost it. She smiled up at him, trying to look like she meant it. “Hey. Remember me?”

Tamatoa, who’d been staring at Maui’s retreating form, blinked and looked down at her. For a few moments, he just seemed dizzy. Then he frowned, resting his head down on the sand. “Human,” he muttered. That seemed to calm him down almost right away; if anything, Moana guessed, because her presence was a rather strong hint that his nightmare had been just that. A fading nightmare. “The smart one.”

“I won’t be offended if you call me Moana, you know,” she said lightly, and gave his claw a light knock. “Mind if I climb up?”

He didn’t even seem to hear her question, and Moana decided to take it as a yes. “My neck hurts,” he complained, staring at her as she stood on top of his claw, then he frowned again. “I’m not _dead_ though, am I?”

“Of course not,” Moana reassured him, and reached up to place a hand between his eyestalks. “You’re alive and well. You just had a nightmare.”

“But it _hurts._ Maui was--”

“It wasn’t him. There was a bit of an accident with the Kakamora, remember?”

“... Oh. Right,” Tamatoa muttered, then he seemed to perk up some. At least, his antennae and eyestalks did. “But I took their treasure! Right? I think I took their treasure.”

“Sure you did. It’s right over there. No, no, don’t,” she added quickly when Tamatoa tried to turn. “Don’t turn. You’d only hurt your neck. It is there - just trust me.”

The look he gave her was somewhat doubtful, but he did settle down again, head leaning in slightly against her palm. Moana gave him a tentative scratch, and was rather amused to see his eyes narrowing a little, and his frame relax another fraction. It reminded her of Pua’s reaction to head scratches, and she had to hold back a laugh at the absurdity of the comparison.

_Mom, dad, I’m back. This is Tamatoa. He followed me home. Can we keep him?_

Tamatoa would probably be mortally offended if he knew about that thought, so she made a mental note to share it with Maui once well out of his earshot before speaking again. “Now try to get some sleep, okay? You need to rest and--”

“You said I was amazing,” Tamatoa cut him off. His voice sounded sleepy, and keeping his eyes open seemed to be taking him an effort. Whether it was because of exhaustion or because Moana had found the right spot to scratch - didn’t crabs usually fall asleep if scratched on the abdomen? Might be interesting to try that if she ever got a chance - she couldn’t tell. “You _meant_ it, right?”

Didn’t care either way, huh? “Sure I did.”

“Honest?”

“On my ancestors,” Moana said, and it wasn’t a lie, really. What he’d done _was_ amazing.

“But I’m not _shiny_ any--”

… Really now? “Who _cares_ about that?”

“I do!” Tamatoa whined, and Moana almost rolled her eyes. How _could_ he be so dense?

“Look, you took on a ship full of Kakamora _all on your own_ and _won._ How many can say the same? Maui couldn’t,” she added, half-expecting Maui to protest, but instead he stayed silent. That was unusual, but at least it helped, because Tamatoa’s dimming gaze stayed fixed on hers. There was a twitch on his face that looked remarkably like an attempt at grinning.

“That’s right. Heh. Pretty glad I didn’t…” he paused, and whatever he was going to say next - _‘eat you’,_ most likely - was lost in a yawn. “Hey, about the song, did you… did you like…?”  Tamatoa yawned again. His eyes slipped shut, and he mumbled something else, or tried to.

“Shhh,” Moana said, and rested her forehead against his. “Just slee--”

_"Srrnnnk-zzz..."_

… Well. That had been quick.

Slowly, Moana pulled back and climbed off the pincer. Tamatoa’s snoring went from painfully loud to barely audible within seconds, and then, with a snort, it ceased. That was a relief: if he’d kept that up, there would have been no more sleep for them. Although, come to think of it, Maui looked like he’d be getting no more sleep regardless. He was biting his lower lip, absent-mindedly rubbing his hands as though he was trying to clean them, and his gaze was fixed on Tamatoa. More specifically, on the stump of his missing limb. He must have guessed what the nightmare had been about, like she had, and he looked quite uncomfortable about it.

“Are you okay?”

Maui recoiled, and gave her a lopsided grin. It wasn’t very convincing. “Sure. Say, mind if I borrow your boat? Just to go fishing. I won’t even shut you into a cave this time.”

Moana made a face. “How nice of you. You’re not even subjecting me to a musical number,” she joked. Much to her surprise, Maui paused and reached up to rub the back of his neck.

“I, uh. Didn’t apologize for that, did I?” he muttered.

“... For the musical number? It wasn’t _that_ bad--”

“I left you there thinking you’d never make it out of that cave,” Maui explained, avoiding her gaze. “You could have died in there, but I didn’t care. You had something I wanted - the boat - and I just… didn’t _care_ what happened to you as long as I had it and could leave with it.”

Oh ancestors, please no. That wasn’t the kind of talk Moana wanted to put up with at the moment. “Well, I did make it out,” she pointed out. “The Ocean chose me for a reason and so on. And besides, I’d say everything that came after that counts as an apology. If you don’t think so,” she added lightly, reaching to grab her oar and hand it to him, “feel free to catch some breakfast for me as well.”

Maui stared at her for a moment, then his expression melted in a grin. “Hah! I’ll make sure to keep some fish aside for you. The big guy over there eats plenty.”

“Yep, I’ve seen it. But as long as it keeps _me_ off the menu, I have no complaints,” she commented, causing Maui to chuckle.

“I think you’re firmly out of it, no worries. Looks like he’s taken a _shine_ to you,” he said. Moana stared at him, dead-panned, and Maui shrugged. “Well, I thought it was funny. Bet Crabcake would agree.”

 _Because you have the worst sense of humor,_ Moana thought, but decided not to say as much. After all, that meant they had at least _some_ common ground left, and she supposed it was sort of a good thing.

Not that it made their sense of humor any better.


	9. Healing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slower chapter than the rest but hey. Got to give the crab some time to recover.

After losing his leg, Tamatoa had lost consciousness to awaken hours later, in pain and alone, under the faint light of the moon. Now he awoke to annoyingly bright sunlight, but it seemed to be the only difference: he was, once again, both in pain and alone. Not quite in as much pain - the throb of it was far duller than the searing agony of a missing limb - but that wasn’t the part of the ordeal that worried him most.

Being alone did.

“Human?” he croaked. He lifted his head and immediately regretting it when the pain in his neck flared up again. It wasn’t unbearable, but it wasn’t pleasant either. Tamatoa grimaced and leaned his head back down on the sand, moving only his eyestalks to take a look around.

The fire had since died down, leaving only ashes, and Maui and the human where nowhere to be seen. He didn’t much care to have Maui around, but that was worrying - especially since the boat was missing, too. Had they just left him there? No, of course they hadn’t. It couldn’t be. They still thought they needed him to find that hairpin and… and… the human wouldn’t do it, right?

 _Just trust me,_ she had said, and he had, but what if he’d been wrong? What if they took the treasure and just… left him there? The thought filled him with dread, and it was almost enough to get him to try standing to check - almost, because a well-known voice rang out only moments later.

“You awake, Crabby?”

Tamatoa scowled, and looked down at the sand with a noncommittal grunt. He’d have much preferred to see the human first, if anything so he wouldn’t have to feel in any way relieved to hear Maui’s voice of _all_ voices.

“Where’s the human?” he grumbled, stubbornly refusing to look in Maui’s direction as he heard him reaching the shore and then pulling the boat on the sand.

“Off to get more lauti leaves, I bet. We’re going to need more to patch you up. You heal quickly, but it’s still going to take a few days for _that_ to entirely close up.”

I don’t need your help, Tamatoa wanted to say, but he had enough sense to know it would be a too obvious lie, so in the end he didn’t. He just kept scowling at the sand before him, trying his hardest not to think of his previous night’s nightmare while hoping with all his might Maui wouldn’t mention how he’d woken up screaming. But _of course_ he would; why wouldn’t he? It was top-notch mocking material, and Tamatoa had served it to him on a silver platt--

“There. No silver platter to eat from, but I bet you’re not gonna be too picky.”

Tamatoa blinked, taken aback, when a load of fish was suddenly thrown on the sand in front of him. He glanced up to see Maui shrugging, wrapping up the fishing net. “You’re welcome.”

“I didn’t _thank_ you.”

“I’ll pretend you did. Now eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” Tamatoa said, precisely one moment before his stomach grumbled. Loudly.

Maui raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, and Tamatoa just scoffed before he reached out with a claw and threw some fish  in his mouth. He’d hoped Maui would get out of the way once he began eating, but he stood there for a few more moments before he finally spoke.

“All right, look. I have been thinking--”

“Color me surprised.”

“... And I think we should both be making an effort here,” he went on, ignoring his jab.

“That’s what the _human_ thinks,” Tamatoa pointed out through a mouthful.

“And she’s right,” Maui replied with a shrug. “I mean, she _usually_ is. Don’t tell her I said that.”

Tamatoa gave a sound halfway through a laugh and a snort. “You _bet_ I’ll tell her.”

“Teacher’s pet.”

“What?”

“Nothing. What I’m saying is, we started this whole trip on the wrong foot.”

Tamatoa stared at him, then he blinked. His eyestalks shifted towards his missing limb, and then back to Maui. He had followed his gaze, and he actually looked embarrassed rather than… well. Tamatoa had kind of expected him to be smug, if anything, having reminded yet again of that defeat.

“That. That wasn’t meant as a pun,” Maui said instead, reaching to rub the back of his neck.

Tamatoa blinked. “Are you _really_ trying to be civil?”

“I guess I am. Not that you’re making it easy.”  
“... Was it the darts, or did the human tell you to?”

Maui rolled his eyes. “Ha ha. You’re hilarious.”

“I was serious.”

“It’s neither. I just figured…” Maui paused, and then groaned. “Uuugh. I’m not good at this. Look, about what happened--”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Tamatoa cut him off, the nightmare still in the back of his mind. Some of that terror - he was powerless to stop Maui if he’d decided to kill him back then, and he would be powerless to stop him now - tried to resurface, and it took him an effort to push it back and try _not_ to sound like he was seriously worried for his life. He threw some more fish in his mouth began chewing it. “Unless you’re going to apologize--”

“Don’t push it,” Maui cut him off, a sharp note back in his voice. “I am not sorry I stood for humans. I am not sorry I defended myself. But… I guess I _am_ sorry things got that far to begin with.”

_… Wait. What?_

The mouthful of fish Tamatoa was swallowing went the wrong way, causing him to start coughing, spraying bits of food in Maui’s direction. “Hey! Careful there!” he protested, getting out of the way just on time to avoid being hit by a couple of fish heads.

“Did you - _hack!_ \- did you do that on purpose?” Tamatoa managed, still coughing. Before him, Maui rolled his eyes.

“Now you’re just being paranoid. Of course not!”

Tamatoa frowned and opened his mouth to say that purposely getting him to choke on his breakfast would be far from the worst Maui had ever done, but he paused when another noise reached him. A _munching_ noise. And, judging from Maui’s expression one moment before he turned, he had just heard it as well.

“... Really now?”

Halfway out of the water, half a shark in his front paws and his mouth still full, Pilifeai shrugged. “Just pretend I’m not here,” he said, and resumed chewing.

Tamatoa glared at him. “Don’t you have anything more entertaining to do?”

“Not at the moment,” was the reply. “Do go on.”

“Go on with what?”

“Don’t know. Something? A fight? Reconciliation? Insults?” Pilifeai suggested. “I’m done trying to guess with you. Just enjoying the show. Nice save with the Kakamora, by the way.”

Tamatoa squinted at him, then turned to Maui. “Was that a compliment? It sounded like one.”

“It was,” Pilifeai said. “Pretty impressive. Very much unlike the Demigod over here who got himself caught in the first place. Embarrassing, wasn’t it?”

Tamatoa rolled his eyes. “I know, right? And when I got there to save him, he was absolutely useless.”

“Hey now, I had been paralyzed--”

“Rather pathetic,” Pilifeai cut him off, entirely ignoring him. “And the human had to go and save him yet again, dragging you with he--”

Maui scowled. “Are you here to be a creep, or to play Diss the Demigod?”

Pilifeai frowned in thought. “Hmm… both? Both would be good. What do you say, crab?”

“Oh! I can play Diss the Demigod!”

“Seriously, Crabcake? I was trying to go for some kind of reconciliation here! Can we focus on that for a minu--”

“Oooh, I’m not missing _this_ one! Bet you a ton of fish it’s going to fail--” Pilifeai began, leaning forward, only to flinch back when Maui lifted his fishhook with a growl. “Oh, come on! I’m just saying what everyone is thinking here!”

“Nobody asked for your opinion. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get lost right now.”

“Just pretend I’m not--”

“I SAID NOW.”

Pilifeai did retreat back in the ocean after some more threatening and grumbling being thrown back and forth, but Tamatoa barely paid any mind to it: he just kept staring at Maui, blinking quickly and trying to make sense of what he’d just heard.

“Reconciliation? Really?” he asked the moment Maui turned back to him, still scowling over Pilifeai’s interference. “Is _that_ what breakfast was about?”

Maui grunted, reaching to rub the back of his neck and glancing away. “Yeah. I guess.”

“So you weren’t trying to make me choke?”

“Of course it wasn’t-- why would I do something _that_ stupid?”

“You hate me, for one.”

“I don’t-- uugh,” Maui let out a groan, and threw up his hands. “You know what? Never mind. Just stuff your face. We’ll talk about this again later.”

Tamatoa blinked again, watching Maui’s retreating back as he stomped away. His gaze fell on the tattoo behind his shoulder - the two of them locked in the fight that had cost him his leg - and he scowled before looking away.

_I want you to remember this. From this moment on, every breath you take is a gift from me._

Reconciliation, sure. Did he really think some fish would change anything, anything at all, after what had happened? As if! There was too much history between them. Sure, Maui could just erase their friendship like it had never been, and all for the sake of his precious humans, but Tamatoa wasn’t like that. He remembered it all too well, as well as the hatred that had come afterwards; no amount of _breakfast_ could make him forget any of it.

Still, when his stomach grumbled again, he did take another mouthful.

* * *

“What about this one? It looks like a hairpi--”

“No, that’s not it.”

“You didn’t even _look_ at it.”

Tamatoa tore his gaze away from the golden shell he was looking at for just a fraction of a second before shrugging. “There, I looked. That’s not it. Give it here.”

Maui gave him the hairpin with a frustrated sigh, and scowled down at the scattered treasure. A fair chunk of it had turned out to be indeed part of what had been stolen from Tamatoa - it looked like they’d guessed right, that the Kakamora had intercepted some of the monsters who had fled from Lalotai and taken it from them - and, while it was nowhere near as much as his original treasure had been, it still made quite a pile.

But Maui’s mother’s hairpin was nowhere among it. Peering down from Tamatoa’s back, where she had climbed to tend to his wound, Moana could see clearly the scowl on Maui’s face before he lowered his gaze. Of course he’d known that it would be unlikely for them to be so lucky, just finding it right away, but the disappointment was so clear on his face that it hurt. She opened her mouth to speak, not quite knowing what she’d say in the first place, but Tamatoa spoke first.

“You could go take another look at the ship,” he suggested, bringing the pile of treasure closer to him with his claws and resting his chin down on it. “Hairpins are tiny, you know. Might have slipped between a couple of boards or something like it. Oh, and if you find any more treasure, feel free to bring it over here.”

Maui sighed. “I suppose it won’t hurt,” was all he said. Moana held back a sigh, following him with her gaze. Part of her wished to follow him and tell him that it was all right, that they’d find it eventually, but she knew that Maui probably preferred to have a few minutes by himself.

Plus, she had to finish tending to Tamatoa’s wound. Not that she’d need to do it for much longer, by the looks of it. “You heal really quickly, don’t you?”

“Mmh. That’s kind of weak as a compliment, babe. Not really trying anymore, are you?”

Throughout the day, Moana had somehow managed not to snap despite the fact the giant crab was, well. _Crabbier_ than usual and absolutely insufferable, complaining all the time while he did nothing but lie down to let them look after his wound and guzzle down whatever food was brought to him; looking at the treasure seemed to be the only thing that could make him cheer up some. She supposed he was still embarrassed over what had happened the previous night, but her patience had a limit and he was very, very close to crossing it.

Plus, she was rather sure Tamatoa could now stand and walk without feeling too dizzy if he chose to, and he just had decided not to, only to force Maui to take everything shiny out of the ship and over to him.

“I’m not trying to compliment you. I’m just stating a fact,” she pointed out, her voice dry. And it was a fact, that was for sure: after removing the old leaves and poultice to replace them, she could see that the exposed flesh was already beginning to harden, the wound already starting to close. The new skin there would probably be harder and a darker shade of purple than it was before, and maybe the back of his neck would always bear a slight depression, but the sight was nowhere as gruesome as it had been before. “Not _everything_ I tell you is meant to flatter you, you know.”

“Then you may as well say nothing. Yes, I heal quickly. That’s going to turn into a hideous scar soon. Happy now?”

Moana scowled, but caught herself before snapping. She drew in a deep breath, began putting fresh poultice on the wound, and did precisely as he had told: she said nothing, and just began mentally counting the seconds.

She made it to forty-five before Tamatoa spoke again. “... Does it still look bad?”

“Why don’t you take a look?”

“I don’t _want_ to,” Tamatoa grumbled. Despite being on his back, Moana could almost _see_ him pouting. He stayed quiet a couple more minutes before speaking again, just as she finished placing the last leaves. This time he sounded sheepish, despite his obvious - and failed - attempt at sounding casual.  “About… about last night, I was, huh. Making sure you were paying attention.”

“Oh?” Moana said, cocking her head. It was the first time he directly mentioned the incident, and she hadn’t brought it up herself. Neither had Maui, as far as she could tell.

“It’s not like I was really _scared,_ you know,” Tamatoa added, and his eyestalks finally turned so he could glance up at her. “Don’t tell me you fell for it!”

_Don’t tell me you seriously expect me to fall for this right now._

Moana held back a grin and instead crossed her arms, feigning confusion. “Last night? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Tamatoa scowled. “Sure you do! When I screamed and--”

“You must have dreamed. I slept like a log.”

“No you didn’t! You-- oooh, wait!” The scowl faded when realization sank in. “I got it now! I mean - of course you slept like a log. Tiring day yesterday, huh?”

“Very. Good thing the night was uneventful and we all got to rest,” Moana said, and this time Tamatoa laughed. A huge claw reached back to pick her up, and he brought her back on the ground in front of him and the pile of gold. The terror she had felt when he’d first grasped her was still somewhere in the back of her mind, but it seemed so distant now; at that point, she’d pretty much gotten used to it. The fact she no longer feared for her life probably had something to do with it.

“Have I already said I’m--”

“Glad you didn’t eat me, yes. A few times,” she pointed out, causing Tamatoa to laugh again.

“Hah! Tell you what - I’ll let you pick something to keep for yourself from the Kakamora’s treasure,” he added, poking her with his claw and almost making her topple backwards, no matter how careful he tried to be about it. Still, Moana was too taken aback by what he said to really notice.

“That’s… really nice of you.”

“Just pick one, babe. As long as it’s not _too_ big. Or shiny,” Tamatoa clarified with a flick of one of his antennae. “The shiniest stuff is mine. I dragged the ship here. I earned it.”

Moana’s eyes shifted to the huge wreck of a ship further down the beach, where Maui had just returned to check for anything else resembling a hairpin, and frowned. Tamatoa noticed, and immediately got defensive. “Hey, you should be grateful I’m letting you take anything at all!” he protested, causing her to blink.

“Wha-- no, no, it’s not that,” she said quickly. “I’m grateful. Really.”

That seemed to pacify Tamatoa some, but he seemed unconvinced. “What was the scowl about, then?”

“I was just wondering if taking the ship was worth… well, you were hurt and bleeding. Wouldn’t it have been best to leave it and just get ashore quicker to fix that as soon as possible?”

Tamatoa stared at her like she’d just grown a second head and that head just happened to be growing horns. “Leave treasure at sea? Are you crazy?”

“We could have retrieved it later.”

“And risk someone else taking it? No thanks.”

“Then we could have found it again. I just don’t think it was _so_ important you should risk-- ”

“You _are_ crazy,” Tamatoa scoffed, cutting her off. “What would be more important than--”

“What about your life?”

Tamatoa shut his mouth so abruptly that she could hear his teeth clicking together. He blinked, then seemed to mull on the question and Moana was rather horrified - but not really surprised - to realize that he _honestly_ wasn’t sure what to answer. In the end, he shrugged.

“Well, what’s the point if you’re not shiny to begin with?”

Moana opened her mouth to speak, but words failed her and Tamatoa seemed to take her silence for agreement. He nodded, clearly satisfied. “See? No point. But I’ll be shiny again soon, so that’s all right.”

Moana gaped.

“... Human? Did you fall asleep?” Tamatoa called out, waving a claw in front of her. “Hello?”

“I… that… that is--”

She had meant to say ‘the dumbest thing I ever heard’, but she never got to and maybe it was a good thing. Before she could utter another word, there was a cry coming from the wrecked ship.

“Hey! Check this out!”

Maui jumped off the ship with an impressive leap that had him landing only a few steps away. He walked up to them with a wide grin, holding something in his hand that looked much like… a bracelet, Moana guessed, although it was unlike any bracelet she had ever seen before: a simple, thin band of deep black obsidian. Not a hairpin for sure. “What’s that?” Moana asked, and Maui threw the bracelet at her. She caught in instinctively, and looked down at it.

Tamatoa made a face. “Some ugly thing,” he muttered in distaste, resting back down on the sand. “You can keep _that,_ babe. What’s the point of a bracelet that doesn’t shine?”

“Congrats. You’re an idiot,” Maui said lightly, and turned back to Moana before the giant crab could say anything. “That just so happens to be one of the gods’ many little artefacts scattered across the ocean. We were lucky the Kakamora didn’t know what they were holding. It may not look like much, but it will be Crabcake’s ticket into the Vault.”

Moana glanced at Tamatoa, only to see her confusion mirrored on his face. He shrugged. “Don’t ask me. No idea what he’s going on about.”

“Just put it on,” Maui instructed her, and Moana did. It fit her wrists perfectly, like it was made for her, even though only moments earlier she had thought it would be too large to wear without it sliding down over her hand.

“Okay. What now?”

“Iti haere.”

“What?”

"Bless you," Tamatoa said drily. 

"Oh, ha ha. You're hilarious. Look, just point at Crabcake with that hand and say _iti haere_.”

“What would that do?”

“Only one way to find out, isn’t there?”

“Or you could just _tell_ us before she tries it on me!” Tamatoa protested, starting to shift back. “Human, _don’t!_ Maui, tell me what it doe--!”

“Iti haere!”

And just like that, Tamatoa was gone. Simply _gone,_ there one moment and gone the next. Moana blinked, eyes widening and moving back and forth between her outstretched finger and the spot where Tamatoa had been moments before. “Maui,” she called out, her mouth dry. “Where has he go--”

“HEY! What’s the big idea?”

Very slowly, Moana looked down towards the source of the shrill, annoying and very much _annoyed_ voice that had just rung out. Beside her Maui was roaring with laughter, which it turn only seemed to made Tamatoa angrier. Because that was Tamatoa all right. Just tiny, about the same size as Pua. And, if the constant stream of threats and insults leaving him was anything to go by, he didn’t like that at all.

“Stop it! This is not funny, Maui! Stop laughing and-- human! Not you, too!”

Moana slapped a hand on her mouth as quickly as she could, and she managed to kill of laughter before it left her. Still, she found herself smiling under her hand. “Well, it’s… you actually look kind of… cute?”

Tamatoa bristled. “I will crush you for this!”

“HAH! You couldn’t pinch off my little finger if you tried!” Maui laughed again, leaning forward and resting his hands on his knees. “Man, oh man! Hey, if she called you her little friend now, she wouldn’t be wrong!”

“Stop it!”

“You’re so tiny!”

“I TOLD YOU TO STOP IT!”

“What was that? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. Your voice is so small…”

_“Bwook!”_

“Wha-- hey! No! Get away!”

For a few moments, Moana couldn’t bring herself to intervene: there was something oddly fascinating in watching her dimwit chicken walking up to a shrunk Tamatoa and trying to peck at him, and at the trinkets on his shell. Still, those pincers could still be dangerous for Heihei and Tamatoa really _didn’t_ need his wound to be pecked at, so she quickly reached down to grab him before any damage was done.

“Ow! Easy! My neck hurts!”

Tamatoa’s shriek at being suddenly picked up was enough to give Maui another fit of laughter, but Moana managed not to laugh as well. Somehow. It did take an effort, though.

“Human!” Tamatoa all but whined, turning to look at her and shifting in her arms in the process. His legs kicked in the air, and he looked immensely uncomfortable; Moana supposed that being picked up wasn’t something he’d experienced in a very long time, and for obvious reasons. “Make him stop!”

Maui’s laugh died down to a chortle and then it stopped, although the grin stayed. “Okay, okay,” he said, lifting his hands. “There. I’m done.”

“You’re still snickering!”

“Am not,” Maui snickered.

_“Human!”_

“Maui, stop--” Moana trailed off,trying to hold back a snicker of her own when Maui made a face. “Just… stop.”

Tamatoa glared up at her and huffed, crossing his claws. “Still not funny. And my neck hurts! Put me down!”

Moana did as he’d asked, kneeling down on the sand. Tamatoa rested his chin on his pincers again and glared up at Maui. It had to be the first time in thousands of years that he had to look _up_ at someone, and it was clear he hated it. “Turn me back!”

The grin vanished from Maui’s face, his expression turning grim. “Who says we can do that?”

“WHAT??”

Tamatoa’s voice came out as a shrill, and it was enough for Maui to entirely lose it. “Pfft-- _Hahahahaha!_ Just kidding! Of course we can turn you back! Oh man, the look on your fa-- whoa!” Maui took a step back, lifting his arms, when Moana pointed at him with the hand wearing the bracelet, cocking an eyebrow. He gave a sheepish grin.

“Okay, okay. Got the message. I’m done laughing,” he said, and - to Moana’s surprise - he sat down on the sand as well, so that he wouldn’t tower over Tamatoa _too_ much. “Of course we can turn you back. Just not right away.”

“What? Why not?”

“Well, it’s easy to look after your wound if you’re like this for now,” Maui said with a shrug. “Easier to clean and we need a _lot_ less leaf poultice to keep it disinfected. Oh, and you’re much easier to feed.”

Tamatoa scowled, but he seemed to begrudgingly concede the point. Sort of. “And I’m supposed to believe you shrunk me for my own good?” he asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Maui shrugged, and scratched his nose. “Well, no. There are two more reasons.”

“Are there?”

“First of all, it’s funny.”

“I _hate_ you.”

“Noted. But secondly, well. I did say it’s your ticket to the Vault, didn’t I? You said you wanted to come in with us before the whole Kakamora incident, and now,” he added, gesturing for him with both hands, “Now you can do so. Unnoticed. You’re welcome.”

Tamatoa opened his mouth to say something, then he closed it again, and his eyes widened. “Ooh! Good one! What are we waiting for?” he added, and stood. “Let’s hide the treasure and get going!”

Moana looked at Maui. Maui looked at her. They both glanced down at Tamatoa.

“... Wasn’t your neck hurting a minute ago?”

Tamatoa gave something that looked a lot like a shrug. “It’s _still_ hurting, but treasure will heal it.”

“Huh. I’m no healer, but I think most of them would disagree with your idea of treatment.”

Tamatoa huffed, crossing his pincers. “I didn’t ask for your opinion. The more gold I have, the better I can cover this ugly thing.”

“That’s… not really the same thing as _healing_ it,” Moana pointed out, gaining herself a look that told her in no uncertain terms to mind her own business. “How about we go tomorrow?” she added quickly when she realized that Tamatoa wasn’t quite as steady on his legs as he was trying to look like. “Just to give it some more time.”

“I don’t need more time!”

“But it would make me a _lot_ less worried for you,” Moana said, and mentally patted herself on the back when Tamatoa blinked, clearly taken aback. “Can you do it for my peace of mind? Please? Just rest another day. We’ll go tomorrow at dawn.”

Tamatoa blinked again. Then he opened his mouth. He lifted a claw. He lowered it. He closed his mouth. Finally, he gave another grunt and leaned back down. “... Just because you asked nicely,” he muttered, looking away.

To his credit, Maui was rather quick to turn his laugh into a coughing fit.

* * *

“Human?”

“Yes?”

“Can you make your pig stop _staring_ at me?”

Huddled on Moana’s lap, Pua gave Tamatoa another puzzled glance before looking up at her, clearly unsure what to think of the sudden change in size. “He’s probably just amazed by how shiny you are,” she said instead. The trinkets Tamatoa had on his shell had shrunk down with him, and they were gleaming in the flickering light of the firee.

Far from impressed, Tamatoa grunted and took another bite of fish. “So now I can amaze pigs. Great.”

“Hey, it’s a step forward,” Maui quipped, and shrugged at Tamatoa’s glare. “Look, it’s just temporary. You’ll be back to your usual size when convenient. You’ll have plenty of shiny stuff to cover yourself with again, and then you’ll strut back to Lalotai in style,” he added, and paused. “... Why did you decide to live there, anyway?” he found himself asking. Prior to their fight, Tamatoa had always lived close to the island where he’d been brought up, only seeing Lalotai on a couple of occasions and never staying for long.

Tamatoa shrugged. “Where else would I go? My old home had _sort_ of soured on account of getting my leg ripped out there.”

Maui clenched his teeth for a moment, refusing to feel guilty for defending himself but also holding back from snapping as much. “You could have gone anywhere else.”

“And why? I had my place cut out for me,” Tamatoa remarked with no small amount of bitterness, and swallowed the rest of the fish. “The realm of monsters, right?”

_Gran went on and on about this place, you know? How this is where we were supposed to be, how we’d be coming back when I got big enough to fend for myself, and so on._

_I  trusted you and forgot what you are. A monster. I was wrong thinking you were any different._

“It’s just that you didn’t seem to like the place much when we saw it,” Maui finally heard himself saying.

“Hey, at least I had neighbors in Lalotai. They learned quickly _not_ to try stealing my stuff, so we were cool.”

“... Since when are you a fan of good neighborhoods?”

“Sorry, let me rephrase it. At least I had an audience.”

Oh. Right. “Makes sense,” Maui conceded, deciding not to point out that said audience hadn’t hesitated to steal all they could from him the moment he’d been powerless to defend his hoarded treasure. “Did you meet any of our old, er, buddies there? Aside from the annoying giant lizard who’s hiding behind those rocks to eavesdrop right now.”

“Am not,” Pilifeai’s muffled voice came from behind said rocks. He ignored it, and so did Tamatoa, who was scratching his chin with a claw.

“Let me think… oh! That _other_ guy! The giant octopus, whathisface…”

“Oh! I remember that one! It’s Te We-- Waka? Waka something?”

“Naaah, man, it was… Wheke? There was definitely a Wheke somewhere…”

“Right, right!” Maui rubbed his temples, trying to jog his memory. “Te Wheke! And something else, like… Moana, a little help?”

Moana raised an eyebrow. “How would I know? If it’s been thousands of years, I’m afraid I can’t help--”

“Oh! OH! I got it!” Tamatoa called out, lifting a claw and waving it for attention. “It was Te Wheke-a-Muturangi! You wouldn’t believe it, man - I met him within a century or so of arriving in Lalotai and he tried attack me! Didn’t even say ‘hi’ first.”

Maui made a face. “Didn’t change at all, did he?”

“Well, he sure _changed_ after he tried to mess with me,” Tamatoa said, and grinned. “I was a _lot_ bigger than he remembered by then. I snapped off most of his tentacles. Shame he got away with the rest. He tasted delicious - wouldn’t have expected that from such a dour guy. He didn’t even stay to hear the rest of the victory song!”

Maui raised both eyebrows. “Now that’s just rude.”

“I _know,_ right? Most of them had the good grace to listen before I ate them. But I guess my singing was wasted on the guy anyway. By the way, you never told me if you liked--”

“So, who _was_ this Te Wheke-a-Muturangi?” Moana asked, causing Tamatoa to trail off, and shrugged when they both turned to glance at her. “Sounds like there’s a story there,” she said, adding a log to the fire she was using to cook her fish. “So, tell me what happened.”

Tamatoa immediately looked at Maui. “I’m telling this one.”

With a shrug, Maui held up his hands. “Fine, fine. As longs as you don’t make things up.”

“When have I _ever_ done that?”

“Do you need the long list, or the short one?” Maui asked, but Tamatoa entirely ignored him and just looked up at Moana.

“So, this one time, some… three thousand years ago?”

“Give or take a few centuries, yes.”

“Thought so. Anyway, I was just having a stroll on my old island when Maui showed up...”

* * *

“Please, you must help me!”

“Whoa! Hey!” Tamatoa staggered back, caught by surprise, when Maui suddenly dropped from the sky right in front of him. “Can you _stop_ doing that?”

“Forgive me, oh great Tamatoa!” Maui cried, falling on his knees and holding up his hands. “I have come to beg for your help! In my endless dumbassery I have awakened a monster I can’t defeat and I’m too scared to fight it on my own. I actually think I peed myself. I need someone mighty like yourself to--”

* * *

“Okay, okay, I’m gonna stop you right there. That’s _not_ what happened.”

“Oh, it definitely is!”

“It _isn’t_ and you know it. You’re making it up.”

“Am not! I’m just adding a bit of pathos to the narrative.”

“Pathos my--”

“And look, the human is laughing. She likes how I tell it.”

“Hey, whose side are you-- uuugh, whatever. All right, that’s it. I’m telling the story from here…”

* * *

“Come on, Crabby, it will be fun!”

_“Uuugh.”_

“Can you _try_ to look a bit more enthusiastic about it?”

“Of course. Yay. Fighting a giant octopus is exactly how I wanted to spend this fine afternoon. Oh joy.”

“Fighting a giant octopus and getting your pincers on some treasure!”

“You’re not even sure there _is_ any treasure in the shipwreck.”

“But it’s a chance, and that chance is why you’re here,” Maui pointed out, and Tamatoa snorted, but he said nothing to deny it. It was as good as getting him to concede the point, all things considered. “Come on, it’s nothing difficult. You just get him to come out of the shipwreck and I’ll handle the rest.”

“And leave to me anything we find in the shipwreck?”

“You bet.”

“So what’s in it for you? If you say it’s just for _fun,_ I--” Tamatoa began, only to trail off when Maui turned back to look at him, his face set in a grim line.

“He’s been terrorizing humans at Whekenui for far too long. The more food he demands for appeasement, the less they have to eat themselves,” he said. Tamatoa stared at him. Maui stared back and raised en eyebrow.

“And thaaat’s… bad?” Tamatoa finally ventured, faintly wondering how come he hadn’t thought of doing that himself when there were humans on his island. Then again, they had left some time before he grew large enough to shrug off their attacks: back then, had he found himself facing the whole lot of them with spears at once, he _might_ have found himself in trouble.

“Well, duh,” Maui was muttering. “Of course it’s bad. Especially since he’d be perfectly capable of catching his own food. He’s a lazy slob and I’m about to give him a clear message - you just get him out in the open. So, will you help?”

“Do I _really_ get to keep everything we find in that shipwreck?”

“Down to the last tiny speck of gold. And if there isn’t any, we’ll go hunting for some other treasure right away. Deal?”

Just as he’d expected, Tamatoa grinned. “All right. Count me in.”

Maui laughed. “I knew you’d say just that, buddy,” he said, then gestured towards the sea with his hook. “We’re almost there. The bay is right at the next island. Here’s what you need to do…”

* * *

“Oh, so _I’m_ not the first one you ever used for monster bait? And here I thought it made me special.”

“Hey, it’s not like he was a totally helpless bait. He could defend himself for a bit. Not that you were half bad when you had to get Crabby to talk about himself, though.”

“Wait, you sent her in my lair as bait?”

“Took you a while to guess, Crabcake.”

“Really, man? She could have gotten eaten!”

“... I love it how you’re talking like it wasn’t _you_ who almost had her as a snack.”

“Pffft. Well, if we really _have_ to discuss semantics--”

“Guys, _guys_. No one ate me and I’m fine. Can we go back to the story?” Moana cut in before they could start arguing. Really, they had been doing so well: that had probably the longest they had gone on talking in each other’s presence without an argument breaking out, and she’d rather keep it that way. She turned to Tamatoa. “So, you went there first to attract him out of the shipwreck, right? And how did you do it?”

“Oh, I stood there and yelled insults. Something like… huh… I’m not sure what it was. It’s been a while.”

“I think there was a pretty good one on how… no, wait, I forget. But it involved doing something with his tentacles and I remember it was good.”

That was enough for Moana to decide she probably didn’t _want_ them to remember exactly what Tamata had said. Best to live with the doubt. “So you got him out of the shipwreck?” she asked quickly, and Tamatoa nodded.

“Sure! So, just a few insults in, and this guy comes out of the ship’s hull…”

* * *

When Te Wheke came out of the shipwreck, Tamatoa realized that he really should have asked Maui just _how_ big the guy was.

He had expected the giant octopus to be, well, a giant. But he hadn’t been worried: he was a pretty big guy himself, though he was still nowhere as huge as his grandmother had been - that would take a few more thousand years at least - and he had been pretty sure he could hold his own if needed.

But when the tentacles came out first, each of them about as thick as himself, he began having a few doubts. When the entirety of Te Wheke-a-Muturangi squeezed out of a shipwreck in which by all logic he should have never have fit in the first place - octopi anatomy, Tamatoa decided, made absolutely no sense - he could tell that he would have no chance to fight a monster who was easily the size of a couple of whales. He could damage a tentacle or two if he tried very hard, but that would be all: the monster would make a short work of him if Maui didn’t intervene.

... Speaking of Maui, where in the world _was_ he?

“H-hey there,” Tamatoa said, taking a few steps back. “I, uh. Was just wondering if you were home?”

Te Wheke glared at him, his eyes like to beads of obsidian, and said absolutely nothing: he just seemed to size him up and then narrowed his eyes even more into two slits of pure malevolence. Tamatoa swallowed and lifted his pincers, snapping them.

“I wouldn’t even think of it if I were you,” he said, trying to sound like he thought he had half a chance to come out of a fight on top. “I’m too tough, buddy. And also, uh... I’m poisonous. Yes. The most poisonous poisonous crab you’ll ever--”

_“CHEE-HOO!”_

Something swam past Tamatoa, so quick that it took him a few moments to realize that it was Maui, in the form of a shark… and that he was heading straight towards Te Wheke. Tamatoa opened his mouth to yell at him to come back - seriously, what did Maui think a _shark_ could do against that giant? - but closed it without saying a word when Maui suddenly darted to his left, narrowly avoiding a tentacle that had shot out to grasp him.

Te Wheke let out a frustrated growl, one that seemed to reverberate across the ocean, and then he tried to grasp Maui again, and again - but he was too fast, and too versatile. He’d dart this or that way to avoid each tentacle, or turn into a fish too tiny to grasp for a moment before taking his shark guise again. No matter how much the giant octopus tried to to catch him, Maui just kept swimming in and out of the tangle of tentacles that was starting to look more and more like-- wait a moment. Was that…?

* * *

_“A knot?”_

Moana could barely hear her own voice over the gales of laughter. Maui had begun cackling halfway through Tamatoa’s tale, which in turn had resulted with Tamatoa starting to snicker as well. It hadn’t taken long for that to turn into a full-blown laugh, but what Moana had heard enough to get a pretty clear picture of what had happened. “You _tied his tentacles_ into a knot?”

“HAHAHAH! Pfft-- well, technically _he_ did, while trying to catch me! All by himself! And then--!”

“The bow!” Tamatoa cut him off, still snickering and poking him with a pincer. “Tell her about the bow!”

“Right, right. Well, had to do things right, no?” Maui said, and grinned. “I mean, I could just get them knotted up, but where’s the style in that? So I added a pretty bow. Hey, how about I show her?”

Tamatoa guwaffed. “Why are you even _asking,_ man?”

“Right, right. Re-enactment coming up! Chee hoo!”

Truth be told, said re-enactment - which involved Maui turning into an octopus, tying the tentacles into a bow and then proceeding to tiptoe around on the few he could still move - was actually pretty funny. When Maui lost his balance and fell on the ground with a loud _splat,_ Tamatoa was positively wheezing and Moana wasn’t too far away from tearing up herself. She was pretty sure she could hear something on their left that sounded _a lot_ like a giant lizard trying and failing to hold back some cackling of his own, but she hardly paid any mind to it.

“So,” she finally spoke when Maui turned back to his usual form, still snickering. “Was there any treasure in the shipwreck?”

“No, not really,” Tamatoa said, and shot a slightly less amused glance at Maui. “Nothing worthwhile in it.”

Maui shrugged. “Hey, at least we had fun. Wasn’t that worth the trouble?”

Tamatoa seemed to ponder about it for a moment. “... Fine. That _was_ fun,” he conceded.

“And I did keep my promise to go treasure hunting afterwards,” Maui added, and grinned at Moana. “Want to hear about that one?”

She smiled. Truth be told she was starting to feel a bit sleepy, but she could stay awake for a while more: after the anguish of the previous night, the change was more than welcome.

“Would love to hear it,” she said, and sat more comfortably, a sleepy Pua on her lap, to listen to yet another tale.

“Well, after the ship turned out to be empty, Crabcake here was sulking to hell and back. So--”

“I wasn’t sulking!” Tamatoa protested, causing Maui to trail off and look at him, one eyebrow raised. They stared at each other for a few moments before Tamatoa finally huffed and turned away. Sulkily.

“... Whatever. Go on.”

“Thanks. So, I figured we may as well check out this place a couple of islands away…”

 


	10. The Vault

For several days after he found himself a friend  _ and _ a leg short, Tamatoa wouldn't leave his cave.

First off, he saw no point in leaving when dragging himself back in had been so difficult to begin with. Secondly, he could ignore the fact he was missing a leg as long as he didn’t try walking. And third, he just plainly didn’t  _ want _ to leave it. The fact alone he was still alive - wounded, but  _ alive  _ \- was a relief and a source of anger at the same time. 

_ From this moment on, every breath you take is a gift from me. _

He slept little, and what sleep he got was far from resting: he would awaken with a start each time, expecting to see Maui swinging his hook down on him, a sharp pain in his phantom limb. He’d eaten said limb, of course, because he needed food while he recovered and hey, his gran hadn’t raised him to be wasteful - but soon enough, hunger reared its head again. And yet he didn’t leave the cave: he burrowed himself deeper into the hole in the rock he slept into and kept himself busy looking at every little piece of treasure he had collected, over and over again. It was  _ a lot _ of treasure and it was so shiny, it actually made him feel better. So what if Maui had chosen the humans over him? He was an idiot, that was his loss, and he’d make him pay one day.

Tamatoa shut his eyes, and thought of Maui’s retreating back - of how the last thing he’d seen before blacking out was the newly forming tattoo behind his shoulder, showing their battle. Yet another of his  _ heroic _ feats, on display for all to see. How many people would he show that tattoo? How much would he brag over defeating and maiming him, like so many before him?

_ Of course that doesn’t apply to you. You’re my buddy.  _

_ So I’m not the exception anymore, am I? _

_ You’re not worth the worst of them, you bottom-feed-- _

The memory cut deeper than he should have allowed it to, and Tamatoa’s eyes snapped open, only to be met with his own reflection on a slab of gold. He stared down at it, blinking a couple of times, then he breathed out and went back to examining each piece of his collection. Once again, doing so soothed him. Maui could keep his stupid tattoos and tell what he liked to those stupid humans to keep their stupid love - so what? He had something better right there. He could do without a friend, he could do without a leg: his treasure was still there, every last bit of it. And really, it was about time he began showing it off. What was the  _ point  _ in keeping treasure if no one else knew of it, and envied him for it?

_ I’m never going to hide again. _

Starting to stick his collection on his shell, piece by piece, was more of an impulse than a conscious decision. But it got him to stand up for the first time in days and, focused as he was on what he was doing, he barely even noticed the absence of his front left leg. He barely noticed he was hungry. He didn’t care what Maui had called him - he didn’t care because he was wrong, because he was worth all the humans in existence and more, because no bottom-feeder would look  _ that _ dazzling, would it?

And he did look dazzling all right: once he walked out of the cave to take a good look at himself in the sunlight, he found he couldn’t bring himself to look away. With everything shiny he had ever collected on his shell, covering up most of it, he had turned himself in what was nothing short of a work of art. Why in the world hadn’t he thought of it before? 

Tamatoa laughed in sheer delight, spinning a couple of times just to watch himself sparkle so brightly it almost blinded him. He looked amazing - so,  _ so  _ much better than Maui with his stupid ink stains. If he could see him now--

_ What if he comes back to take the treasure?  _

The thought alone was enough to kill the moment, the laugh turning into ashes in his mouth. Deep down, he knew that it was unlikely, that Maui would not return unless he was given a reason to - but the truth was that he didn’t want to stay on that island. Home stops feeling like home pretty quickly when someone maims you in it.

Tamatoa scowled, then turned towards the horizon. There were plenty of places where he could go, of course. Plenty more islands he could make his own. But why should he bother wandering aimlessly when his destination was so obvious to him now? There was only one place where he should go, the one his grandma would never shut up about, where he should have been along and where they were supposed to return one day.

But she had died without seeing it again, killed by an underwater volcanic eruption before they could return to Lalotai - or even before she could tell him the way so he could make it there on his own. He had shrugged it off, in the end, and remained on the island he knew: Lalotai had been just a name and some tales until Maui had shown him the way to reach it.

And now that he could no longer bear to stay where he was, once again thanks to Maui, it only made sense for him to return. He had one path to walk, and one path only, from there to Lalotai. Tamatoa turned to give one last look at the island where he’d grown up before leaving it for good, heading back to the home of his ancestors.

The realm of monsters.

* * *

“So. What do you think? Do I make a convincing monster?”

“Mmh. Remember when you walked into my lair dressed up like a shiny… thing?”

“Yes?”

“This is worse. No one with half a brain is going to be fooled for a second.”

“Hey, that disguise  _ did _ fool you for a few moments!”

“That’s why I said this one is  _ worse, _ babe.”

With a sigh, Moana wiped some mud off her cheek and looked down at herself. All right, so mud, sticks, leaves and coconut shells didn’t really make a great disguise, but it wasn’t like she had much else to work with. Maui had made it clear she couldn’t just walk in looking like a human; Moana wished he’d mentioned that earlier, when she was still with her people and she could get her hands on something more convincing. “Fine, maybe it’s not so good.”

“It really sucks.”

“Noted, thanks.”

“It  _ does _ make you look even uglier than usual, but doesn’t go all the way to monster-ugly.”

“I said  _ noted. _ Any suggestions to make it better?” she asked. Tamatoa frowned, tapping his chin with a pincer and glancing up at her. The wound on the back of his neck had closed up for the most part, and he seemed able to move without discomfort again. Moana would have marveled again at the speed of his recovery if she wasn’t too busy being annoyed.

“I’d be inclined to say ‘be shiny’, but I guess you’re referring to the disguise and not general life advice. How about--”

“How about a mask?”

Both Moana and Tamatoa turned to see Maui holding up something that looked absolutely nothing like a mask. It was only a crude square of tree bark, with three holes for, Moana assumed, her eyes and mouth. Moana blinked. 

“That’s not a mask. That’s… I don’t know what it is, but it’s not a mask.”

“No worries, we’re gonna make it work. It will just need a few finishing touches. Like antlers, more mud, a cloak, and Crabcake.”

Moana blinked and turned to glance at Tamatoa, who in turn was glancing at her, confusion plain on his face. They both turned to Maui. 

“Fine. I’ll bite. What do I have to do with her disguise?”

Maui grinned, holding up both the makeshift mask and a cloak made out of dead leaves. “You’ll be part of it - that will make her a lot more convincing, and hide you at the same time. Two birds with one stone and all that. Moana, pick him up and get him on your back.”

“What?”

_ “What?” _

“Hey, hey.  _ Who’s _ the shapeshifter here? The master of disguise? Is it either of you? Didn’t think so,” Maui said with a grin when both Moana and Tamatoa looked away. “C’mon, we don’t have all day. Just pick him up.”

Tamatoa wasn’t much bigger than Pua at the moment, but he was definitely heavier and a whole lot whinier. “Careful there! My neck still hurts,” he grumbled when Moana hoisted him on her back. He immediately clung to her torso with all legs, pincers over her shoulders. His eyestalks peered from behind her neck. “What do you even do with so much hair?”

“No talking, Crabby. You’re part of the disguise,” Maui reminded him, and went to throw the cloak over Moana’s shoulders. “Okay, now let me handle this…”

It took a while and it wasn’t very pleasant, with the weight on her back, mud drying on her skin and the bark mask making her face itch, but it was worth it: when Maui stepped aside to let her take a look at her reflection on a slab of gold they had found on the Kakamora’s ship, she could almost believe she was looking at a monster. 

The piece of wood she refused to call a mask was very clearly not a face, but Maui said that plenty of monsters and such hid their features, so no one would question it, and the polished branches on it  _ did _ look a lot like actual antlers. The cloak on her hid Tamatoa from sight, but his presence made it look like she had a severely misshapen back, with kinda helped. The drying mud could be mistaken for scaly, flaking skin as long as one didn’t look too closely, and Tamatoa’s limbs clinging to her torso looked like grotesque, exposed ribs. Also, it looked a lot like she had crab pincers coming out of the sides of her neck. 

“This is… actually pretty good,” she admitted, and saw Tamatoa’s eye peering at the reflection from over her shoulder.

“Well, good to know. You got me all muddy, so  _ at least _ it should be worth it.”

Moana frowned, gaze turning towards the horizon, where she could make out the shape of the rock formation around the Vault - the remains of a once-active volcano. “... Wait. Isn’t the water going to wash off the mud?"

“Not  _ that _ water, it isn’t. It isn’t even really water - just the illusion of it to keep the entrance hidden,” Maui said, and handed Moana a folded piece of cloth with some of the Kakamora’s treasure in it. “Here you go. This is what you’ll pretend to be there to trade. Also, watch your back. Someone might decide to cut your throat and take it all.”

Oh. Great. “... How often does that happen in the Vault?”

“Pretty often,” Tamatoa supplied helpfully. 

“Often enough to be considered a form of transaction,” Maui admitted. “A ‘your money  _ and  _ your life’ sort of deal.”

“Sometimes it’s worse than others, though. Like the mess with that Talamaur.”

“A what?”

“Some really ugly guy who tore someone’s chest open to eat the heart while it was still beating. To consume the soul or something? Anyway, he made a complete mess of it and he also took the guy’s stuff. Talk about greedy.”

The mask prevented from Maui to notice Moana had gone a little green in the face, but he seemed to guess it anyway, because he immediately spoke up. “Yeah, it can get a bit messy. And I mean, you don’t have to come. If you’d rather wait--”

“No, no,” Moana said quickly, holding the bag with the gold a bit tighter. She wasn’t going to just sit and wait; she’d told him she’d help, and that was precisely what she would do. And, to be totally honest, she wasn’t too sure letting those two go anywhere together and unsupervised was such a good idea. “I’m good. I’m coming in with you.”

Maui nodded. “Well, all right. Some of the stuff you see may not be pretty but hey, no worries - I’ll be watching over you.”

“I feel so safe,” Tamatoa said drily.

“Wasn’t talking to you,” Maui said lightly, and grabbed his hook. “Okay. Time to get going. Ready for the flight?”

“No.”

“NO.”

As it turned out, Tamatoa was even less enthusiastic about flying than she was. It did make Moana feel a bit better, despite the fact his grip on her torso tightened enough to almost make her fear he’d crack a rib or two. 

“I’m  _ never _ letting him do this again,” Tamatoa said, his voice a couple of octaves higher than usual, as soon as Maui put Moana down on the rocky ground before the entrance to the Vault. Moana staggered a bit, head still spinning, but at least she didn’t feel like she was close to fainting. It was a step forward, she supposed. 

“Oh, you’ll get used to it,” Maui muttered. “Chee-hoo!”

His hawk form vanished, replaced by something smaller - a crow. He perched himself on Moana’s shoulder. “And here’s my disguise. We’re ready to--” There was the clack of a pincer closing, and a yelp, before Maui abruptly took off, flapping his wings. A few black tail feathers fell on the sand. “Ow! Really, Crabby?”

“Couldn’t resist,” Tamatoa said. Moana couldn’t see his grin, but she could definitely hear it in his voice. She held back a chuckle - best not to encourage him - and turned her attention back on Maui. 

“Can’t you turn into something smaller? You’re heavy,” she pointed out. Her shoulders still kind of hurt from the moment she’d been tugged upwards by one arm while holding onto Maui’s dead weight with the other, but she could carry a bag of gold, and she could carry a crab the size of a piglet on her back - but a large bird on her shoulder as well was kind of pushing it.

Maui rolled his eyes. “Fine, fine. Humans,” he muttered. “Chee-hoo!”

The crow vanished, replaced by a much smaller, yellow bird. “There. Happy now?”

Moana raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t not being recognized the point of a disguise?”

“Sure it is.”

“And you turn into a  _ Maui 'alauahio _ of all birds?” she asked. Maui shrugged, at much as a bird in flight can. 

“So what? No one will recognize me at all. I just like to slip in a bit of subtle irony.”

“Subtle,” Tamatoa muttered, voice dripping with sarcasm. Maui ignored him and went to rest on one of her fake antlers, well out of Tamatoa’s reach. 

“There. And I’m super light, too. Are we ready to go now?”

Moana wasn’t entirely sure she could consider herself ready, especially with such a nebulous idea of what the Vault was really like, but it wasn’t like she could step back. They had wasted enough time as it was, she thought, and walked up to the pool of still water hiding the entrance to whatever lay below. 

“Ready,” she said, and stepped into the Vault.

* * *

Maui had missed plenty of things in the thousand years he had spent alone on that island. 

He had missed company, for one, the attention he got from humans or just plainly the chance to talk with somebody else who could talk back to him; speaking to Mini Maui got really old really fast, as he was unable to word any real reply. It had been a frustrating, lonely millennium. 

He had also missed his fishhook, of course, and the power it gave him; he had missed all of the forms he'd been able to take, and all that it entailed. He had missed soaring through the skies and diving into the depths of the ocean, changing from one skin to the other as easily as most would breathe. He had missed the power that came with being, well. Maui. Trickster, shapeshifter, demigod of wind and sea; powerless and trapped, he’d felt like none of those things for a long time. 

He had missed all of it and more; and, until he returned into the Vault that day, he hadn’t realized he had missed that place, too.

What had been the ancient volcano’s main chamber was swarming with activity, monsters and, most importantly, treasure. Treasure piled in heaps, with beings of all shapes and sizes guarding their share, and others going back and forth to trade, or to just plainly try stealing something valuable. Somewhere on their right a rather dumb-looking Hotua Poro tried to do just that, with the result of being caught and torn to pieces by a boar-headed demon. 

Maui found it kind of funny, but Moana hadn’t noticed and he decided not to draw her attention to it. “All right, here we are,” he said instead. They were standing on top of a small rocky formation overseeing the main crater. “Use your monster voice, don’t look at anyone in the eye, and just pretend you’re interested in looking. Crabby, you keep your eyes peeled for anything you recognize and most of all, _keep those pincers off the merchandise._ If they catch you stealing anything, you and Moana may be dead before you can say ‘shiny’ one last time.”

Tamatoa huffed. “Remember that you said--”

“I know what I said. You’ll have treasure. I just need you to see if you can find the hairpin anywhere first. Once I have it, or if it’s not here, we’ll wreak havoc and take what you want.”

“So you’ll restore me to full size?”

“Yep. Well, Moana will, right before she gets out of the way.”

“Hey, I can--”

“I know  _ exactly  _ what you can do,” Maui cut her off. “Not gonna forget that anytime soon. But Tamatoa and I will be enough to win this one. No need to get yourself in the middle of it,” he added, and let his gaze wander on the entrance of one of the small tunnels that opened up on the sides of the long-extinguished crater. There weren’t many places to hide in the Vault, but those would work just fine for Moana to keep out of a fight. “All right, let’s get going. Remember, you’re a monster. Act like one.”

To her credit, she was convincing enough: when she wobbled among the monsters moving throughout the cave - hey, was that a Hantu Penyardin? He didn’t think there were any left - none of them acknowledged her aside from passing glances to the cloth she was holding, filled with golden trinkets from the Kakamora’s treasure that Tamatoa had decided he could do without. So far, so good: none of them had realized she was human, at least judging from the fact no one had decided to tear her apart.

And none of them realized it later, as Moana walked around undisturbed to carefully look at the treasures and trinkets - or rather, to let Tamatoa take a good look from behind her shoulder, while pretending to be especially interested in hairpins. At one point she bumped into a rather mean-looking being that looked much like a human, but with gills and what was clearly a shark’s dorsal fin; she mumbled an apology and, thankfully, the guy wasn’t up for trouble. 

“See anything you recognize?” she asked under her breath, keeping an eye out for the monster that particular pile belonged to - a slimy, slug-like thing. Tamatoa’s eyes scanned the display and, once again, he let out a disappointed huff. “Nope, nothing of mine here. Not that I’d mind taking some either way…”

“Later,” Maui muttered, his voice just as low. “C’mon, let’s get looking--” he began, only to trail off when  _ something _ caused the feathers on his back to stand on end. He whipped his head around, something in his mind telling him that he was being watched, but he could see nothing unusual behind them: only a bunch of demons, monsters and other misfits going on with their business, trading valuables or stealing them with each other, every interaction underlined by snorts, shouts, curses and growls. Tensions were growing, but there hadn’t been an actual fight just yet; Maui suspected it was only a matter of time before one broke out, with or without their contribution. 

“... Maui? Did you just fall quiet? Should we get worried, babe?”

Tamatoa’s voice reached him as though from a mile away. He shook his head and glanced down. “I really hope I  _ didn’t _ just hear you call me ‘babe’.”

“Pffft, you wish.”

“No, I really don’t.”

“Keep telling yourself that. Don’t get your hopes up, I was asking the human.”

“Is something wrong?” Moana asked, moving away from the display they’d been looking at. 

“I don’t think so. Just a hunch. Let’s search the rest of this place quickly and--”

He never got to finish the sentence, because a moment later something grabbed Moana’s wrist and yanked, dragging her - and, by extension, him and Tamatoa - through the opening of the tunnel they were talking past. Moana let out a yelp that sounded absolutely nothing like the monster voice she was supposed to use. “Hey! What--”

“All right, I’ll bite. What are you  _ doing _ here, you semi-godly pain in the tail?”

Maui felt Moana wince beneath him before she whirled around to see who had talked. Maui turned with her, still perched on the fake antlers, but he may as well not have: he knew that gruff and yet weirdly melodic voice, and he knew exactly who had spoken before he even saw the humanoid-bird shape towering over them. Partly human-looking, mostly bird, with formidable talons and a long beak, Matuku Tangotango hadn’t changed one bit. 

“I… I think you have the wrong guy,” Moana said, in the husky voice she’d practiced, and the being before them rolled his eyes, his long brown-feathered neck bobbing for a moment. 

“Oh no, I don’t. Wasn’t talking to you, human. Maui, last time I checked you knew better than involving mortals in your… whatever the crap you  _ do _ is. Also, wasn’t your bird form a bit  _ bigger _ than that? Not overcompensating anymo--”

“Hah! See? It wasn’t  _ subtle _ at all. Good job there, master of disguise!”

Matuku trailed off and blinked down at Moana again, or so it looked like. Then he spoke again, and it became clear it wasn’t her he was staring at: he was looking at the pincers seemingly coming out of her neck, at the exposed ribs that were not ribs at all and, of course, at the eyes peering at him from behind Moana’s neck. 

“Huh. My memory is not as great as it used to be - bird brain and all that - but I am rather sure you were a faaaair bit larger than this last time, Tama. What  _ happened _ to you, bud?”

Tamatoa rolled his eyes. “What do you  _ think  _ happened to me? Take a wild guess.”

“Maui?”

“You got it.”

“Go figure. Making a habit out of getting folks in trouble, huh?”

Fine, fine, that was enough. “Really? A thousand-something years since last time we met and the  _ first _ thing you do is dissing me?” Maui protested. 

Matuku opened his beak to let out a cackling sound. “What was that? Sorry, can’t hear you over the sound of you messing with the Goddess of Creation and getting darkness to spread through the world. Not that I complained, old pal, but some were less than happy about how  _ that _ particular trick turned out. You could have at least have tried to do something sooner instead of taking a thousand years long vacation.”

“That’s... not exactly how it happened.”

“Yes, he  _ also _ got his butt kicked first,” Tamatoa piped in. “Struck out of the sky. Lost his hook, lost his powers, and was ridiculously weak without them. Get your facts right, man.”

Maui gave what would have been a scoff in his human form, but only sounded like especially angry peeping in his current one. “Thanks. One can always count on you for some help.”

“Anytime.”

“... Huh. Excuse me?” Moana called out, waving a hand. “Can someone fill me in? Anyone?”

Before Maui could say anything, Matuku gave an exaggerated bow that almost resulted with his beak getting stuck in the ground after narrowly missing Moana’s arm. “Right, right. Sorry for grabbing your arm like that. Name’s Matuku Tangotango, Poukai extraordinaire, but not in the habit of eating humans because I _really_ wouldn’t be in such friendly terms with Maui here if that were the case.”

“Yeah, you’d probably be a leg short,” Tamatoa muttered sourly, but no one really listened to him. The mask on Moana’s face hid her features, but when she spoke Maui could easily picture her raising an eyebrow. 

“I have questions about your definition of ‘friendly terms’.”

“Haha! No worries, mortal, it’s always been like this. A bit of joking around, the occasional battle of wits I win without fail, and no harm done. More to the point, I have questions about your presence here, huh… I’d say ‘mortal’ again, but it would be a repetition and I assume you have a first name. Does your kind still do first names?”

“Moana.”

“Charmed. Absolutely charmed. I’m sure you look lovely under that mask. And the mud. And the crab,” Matuku said, and looked back at Maui. “So. What is she doing here?”

Maui shrugged. “Helping me out on a small quest.”

A sigh, and feathered arms crossed over a feathered chest. “I’m afraid I need to ask you what this quest of yours entails.”

“Why? Wanna join in?”

“Nah, I’m good. Getting old for this crap. It’s just that, you know, the last quest of yours any of us heard about kinda resulted in darkness spreading through the world. If we’re gonna have to run for cover again, it would be great to know it now, so I can get a head start.”

Maui grinned, as much as you can grin with a beak. He had no idea how Matuku could be that expressive all the time. “Oh, but there’s also the other quest you didn’t hear about - me stopping the darkness!”

“I thought the  _ human _ did,” Tamatoa pointed out. 

“... Well, yes. But I helped.”

“You can’t have been  _ that _ useful. When you left my lair you couldn’t even control your shapeshifting powers.”

“Hey, you weren’t there, okay? How would you know--”

“Oh! Wanna know how I almost ate him? The human had to  _ save _ him, or else he’d be--”

“We’re trying to recover some treasure,” Moana spoke up, cutting him off, and Maui couldn’t help but feeling a pang of gratitude. “Some monsters stole it from Tamatoa while he was, uh… incapacitated?”

“That’s a way to put it,” Tamatoa said sourly.

“Right. So, we figured some of his treasure may have made its way here.”

Matuku blinked, clearly taken aback, and glanced at Tamatoa’s eyestalks poking out from behind Moana’s shoulders. “First you get shrunk, and then you lose your treasure?”

“It was the other way around, but yeah.”

“This is not your best week, is it?”

“And it was Maui’s fault both times!”

Maui rolled his eyes. “Look, shrinking you was actually useful, okay? We’re looking for your treasure right now and don’t even get me started on how you tried to eat me,” he muttered, then looked back at Matuku. “We have recovered some from the Kakamora - hope you weren’t waiting for them to join you here, by the way, ‘cause I don’t think that’s going to happen - and we figured this would be the best place to start looking.”

“And looking for treasure is  _ all _ you’re doing, right?”

Maui did is best to look absolutely innocent. “Of course!”

“You’re  _ not _ going to mess with some other scarily powerful goddess, are you?” Matuku said, and tilted his head on one side. Maui forced himself to keep up the innocent act.

“Why would you think a such thing?”

“Tell me you’re  _ not, _ Maui. I need to hear those words and to hear them now.”

“... Would a musical number do instead?”

Matuku groaned, reaching to rub the sides of his head. “Oh gods, I knew it,” he muttered. “ Who are you going to piss off this time around, Maui? I know it can’t be worse than Te Fiti, but--” he began, only to trail off when Maui’s grin widened. He blinked, then let his arms-wings fall limply by his sides. “... It’s not worse than that, is it?”

“Naaaah,” Maui replied. It was the most unconvincing denial he’d ever uttered. 

“... Maui, in Tagaloa’s name, who  _ is _ it you’re going to piss off?”

From over Moana’s shoulders, Tamatoa’s eyestalks turned up in puzzlement. “Wait a moment, what are you two even talking about? Maui just needs a hairpin. Isn’t that right? Human? Isn’t that what he wants?”

Moana shifted uneasily. “Well. That would be Step One.”

“And what’s Step Two?”

“Seeing his family.”

“... Weren’t they mortals? I’m not the expert Maui is on you humans, but wouldn’t that mean they’d be sorta dead after five thousand years? Maui, what  _ do _ you need that hairpin for anyway? Wasn’t it some kind of sappy sentimental thing? Am I missing something here?”

All right, now that was getting kind of awkward and wasting time they did not have to waste in the first place, Maui decided. After taking a quick look around to make sure no one was there to see him, he leaped off Moana’s fake antlers and landed on the floor in his usual form. “If you don’t mind, my old pal and I are going to have a quick chat,” Maui said, grasping Matuku’s arm-wing and leading him down the tunnel. “I’ll be right back. How about you take one last look around meanwhile? Just don’t draw attention and you’ll be fine,” he called out over his shoulder, and disappeared with Matuku behind a bend without realizing that his suggestion had one huge, fundamental flaw. 

Regardless the size, it was absolutely impossible for Tamatoa to go anywhere at all and  _ not _ draw attention on himself.

* * *

“Okay, but what  _ does  _ he need the hairpin for?”

Moana bit her lower lip, not quite knowing what to reply. It was something so personal for Maui, she wasn’t sure it was her place to tell anybody else. “... I think it would be best to ask him after we’re out of here,” she finally said, moving past a monster with a lot more limbs than anybody should reasonably need. 

“But he won’t tell me!”

“You can try asking nicely.”

“Oh, sure. Ask me to impale myself on a spike as well, won’t you?” Tamatoa said dramatically, and Moana couldn’t hold back a chuckle. She was rather thankful of the fact a lot of the...  _ beings _ in there made odd noises and muttered to no one in particular: it kept her from standing out by seemingly talking to herself.

“Let’s keep looking. If you see the hairpin, just let me know and we’ll go get Maui, all right?”

“Sure, sure. Let’s get on with-- hey, wait a moment. That stuff looks familiar! Get closer - there, the guy with the dumb mask…”

The moment Moana turned to see exactly who Tamatoa was pointing at, she knew he was right - if anything because the  _ thing, _ something resembling a blot of darkness of vaguely humanoid shape with its features hidden behind a distinctive mask, was familiar to her as well. It was one of the beings she had met in Lalotai the first time she’d been there, the one that had crept up almost close enough to grab her before being shot up through the air by a geyser. The realization was accompanied by a mixture of dread and excitement, because at least that meant they might be on the right track. 

“All right, I’ll get closer so you can take a good look--”

“HEY! YOU! THIEF!”

“No, wait--” Moana tried to call out, but it was too late: the next moment Tamatoa had launched himself off her back to fall on the floor, in plain sight. Which, of course, resulted in absolutely everybody around them to pause and turn to look at them. 

“Human! Turn me back my usual size!”

Moana’s eyes shifted from monster to monster. They all were staring at them, surprise quickly giving way to something else, and absolutely  _ none _ of them looked friendly. Tamatoa seemed to realize as much, and spoke again with a note of urgency in his voice.  “What are you waiting for? Turn me back!”

“I… I don’t know how,” Moana admitted, her mouth dry. 

“... What?” 

“Maui never told me how to do it!”

Tamatoa turned to glance at her, blinking, claw still held up. She shrugged helplessly, and he turned back to the beings around them, eyes shifting from the bared teeth and claws to the weapons some of them were starting to pull out. The monster he had screamed at, the twisted thing with the mask, tilted its head aside and lifted a clawed hand. 

Tamatoa lowered his pincer. “Ah,” he said. 

Moana sighed, and reached to take a golden spear from a heap of treasures with her right hand while letting go of her bag to free the left one, where she still wore the bracelet. She figured that she could ward off a few of them by shrinking them and then beating the crap out of them, but they were too many for her to defeat entirely without help. 

“I think this is the part where we start screaming for Maui to come quickly,” Moana said, holding up the spear and taking a step back. Tamatoa immediately scrambled to hide behind her leg.

“... Yeah,” he croaked. “Let’s do that.”

* * *

“Hine-nui-te-pō?  _ That’s _ who you’re going to mess with next? Seriously?”

“Keep your voice down.”

“You’re crazy!”

“Maybe. If you can stop yelling--”

“First you mess with the goddess of life, and  _ now _ with the goddess of death? What are you trying to do, collect the full set?”

“Look, I wouldn't do it if it would be avoided, but the only way to--”

“Hine-nui-te-pō, Maui! Remember what happened last time you tried to get past her?”

Maui shuffled his feet. “... You had promised to  _ never _ speak of it again.”

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of the worst idea you ever had.”

“Nope. Taking the Heart of Te Fiti was worse. If  _ this _ goes wrong, I’ll be the only one to take the fall,” Maui said, his voice low. “No one else will be any worse off. I’ll make sure of it.”

Matuku sighed, crossing his arms. “Is that supposed to make me feel any better? I’d begun thinking you were dead, you idiot. Now you pop up again and tell me you’ll risk your hide again with a suicidal mission?”

“Hey now, who says it’s suicidal?”

“Getting into the realm of the dead does sound pretty suicidal to me.”

“At least we know I’ll be right where I want to be no matter what happens, huh?”

There was a noise halfway between a chortle and a groan. “May Tagaloa help us all,” Matuku muttered. “You know what,  _ fine. _ Have it your way.”

Maui shrugged. “That’s only going to happen if we find my mother’s hairpin in the first place, or else a trip to the Underworld would be entirely useless. We haven’t had much luck so far.”

“And you were hoping to find it here?”

“I couldn’t think of many other places where I’d go if I were a Lalotai monster in a hurry to trade stolen treasure,” Maui pointed out. “Have you got any more ideas?”

Matuku frowned,tapping his beak. “Actually, now that you mention it, there have been a some Lalotai folks around here in the past few days,” he said slowly, causing Maui to blink. 

“What, really?”

“Yes. And they did seem in a hurry to trade. Most if not all have already left, but I’m pretty sure I saw then trading with a bunch of Taniwha - sheesh, I loathe those guys - and some… huh. I can’t remember what you call ‘em, the ugly pale guys who hate the sun?”

“Ponaturi?” Maui suggested. There was no love lost between him and those goblins, and that had a lot to do with the fact sunlight was fatal to them. They hadn’t taken it kindly to Maui and Tamatoa slowing down the sun to make the day last longer, not one bit, and now it sounded like it was time to rekindle the old animosity. 

Unaware of his thoughts, Matuku nodded. “Yes, those! They and the Taniwha took plenty of the treasure the Lalotai creeps brought in before leaving, let me think… two days ago?”

_ If not for the Kakamora, we wouldn’t have missed them.  _

Maui made an effort to ignore the thought and nodded, throwing the hook over his shoulder. “That’s not going to be a problem. I know where to find them,” he said, thinking quickly. Leaving from the Vault, and if the weather stayed good, they’d reach Manawa-Tane in a couple of days at most; that meant they’d pay a visit to the Ponaturi first, and then, if they didn’t have the hairpin, they’d head south for the Taniwha’s hiding place. “If we don’t find the hairpin here, I know where to look next. Thanks, buddy. I owe you one. Wanna join in?”

Matuku made a face. “No, thanks. I’ll pass. Seeing what happened last time was enough. Just… if you need to find a route past Hine-nui-te-pō, try looking for one that’s less  _ toothed _ than last time, why don’t you?” he added, causing Maui to sigh.

“Heard you loud and clear,” he muttered. “I’ll figure something out when I--” he began, only to trail off when something suddenly drowned out his voice: a piercing shriek, immediately followed by roars and shouts, and the unmistakable sounds of a fight. “What the…?”

“You weren’t really expecting good old Tama not to draw attention on himself, were you?” Matuku asked, deadpanned. On Maui’s chest, Mini Maui and Mini Moana slapped a hand on their faces almost simultaneously. Maui sighed.

“... Come to think of it, not really,” he admitted. “Well, got to save their skins. Been good to catch up. Let’s do this again sometime!” he called out over his shoulder as he charged back to the main chamber, the fishhook held tightly in his hand, ready for the fight. 

Into the tunnel, Matuku gave a long-suffering sigh.  “May the gods help you,” he muttered, his voice entirely lost as the sounds of the fight turned into those of a full-fledged battle.

* * *

“I left you alone five minutes! Literally - AAAGH! - five minutes!”

“It wasn’t me! It was the human!”

“I don’t believe it for a second!”

“Maui! I need you to tell me--”

“But it’s her fault! She doesn’t even know how to turn me back!”

“That’s because - not today, buddy! - I didn’t tell her!”

“Yes, well, if you could -  _ iti haere! _ \- tell me now--”

“I had told you not to try stealing anything!”

“I didn’t! Human, tell him!”

“Well, did he?”

“No, he didn’t-- look out!”

“Hey, good shot! Hadn’t seen that one!”

“Thanks! I mean-- look, just tell me how to turn him back his usual size!”

“Should we? We’re doing so well on our own…”

_ “Maui!” _

“Fine, fine. Just say-- YOU SON OF A--”

“Seriously, man?”

“Wasn’t talking to you! I just saved your shell here, can you try being a little more grateful--”

“MAUI!”

“Fine,  _ fine! _ Just say ‘whakatipu’!”

“Human! Human, do it now!”

_ “Whakatipu!” _

There was a loud, ear-splitting roar that seemed to shake the world, drowning out all the sounds of the battle - or at least it would have if the battle hadn’t entirely stopped, every single being frozen still as they looked up at the huge, snorting boar-headed monstrosity that had suddenly appeared in their midst. It stared down at them with bloodshot eyes, and within seconds everyone had scattered away, dropping all weapons and treasure, leaving only Maui, Moana and Tamatoa to stand before the giant.

“I should have specified,” Maui said lightly, throwing the hook over his shoulder. “You were supposed to point at the  _ crab  _ when you said it _ , _ Miss Master Wayfinder.”

“I was! This guy just jumped in the way and--”

“HUMAN!”

Tamatoa’s terrified shriek came one moment before the being roared and lifted the huge club he was holding, ready to bring it down on them, and its roar drowned out Moana’s next cry.

_ “Wakatipu!” _

Looking back, it would have made a lot more sense to shrink the enemy back to his normal size, but to be honest Moana had sort of panicked; facing a giant monster about to turn you into a wet stain on the ground can do that. But it worked just as well: when the club came down with terrible force it never hit the intended target, because something grabbed it in mid-air: an equally huge and wonderfully familiar claw. Tamatoa grinned at the giant, his pincer clenching into the wooden club, and turned one eyestalk to glance down at them. 

“Hey, Maui,” he called out. “You joining in, or are you going to miss out the fun?”

Maui laughed. “Like you need asking!” he said, and lifted his hook. “Take cover and watch this, Moana! Chee-hoo!”

For a moment - only a moment - Moana considered pointing out that there was no need to battle it while it was that huge, that she could easily turn it back to normal. But truth be told, after listening to their tales, she was a bit curious to see for herself what those two were capable of when fighting together. So she did as Maui had said and moved out of the way to watch the fight. 

Still, she kept herself ready to use her bracelet if things took a wrong turn. Just in case.


	11. Manawa-Tane

_ “But what’s so special about Lalotai?” _

_ “It is home. That’s what makes it special. My home, that of my mother and her mother, and yours as well.” _

_ “But I’ve never seen it.” _

_ “Of course you have, don’t be ridiculous. You just don’t remember it. You were only a larva when we left. A tiny little one. So tiny I could hardly even see you!” _

_ “Gran…” _

_ “Tinytoa.” _

_ “C’mon!” _

_ “Hah! Complain all you want, but you are a tiny little thing still. When you’re bigger and your shell is as thick as your head, though, we will go back.” _

_ “But if it’s so great, why did you leave at all?” _

_ “You know why, kid. It’s our home, but it is also dangerous for the young. You were the only one left of the clutch. No point in risking it. When you’re bigger--” _

_ “But you didn’t have to leave, too. Why did you come with Ma and me?” _

_ “...” _

_ “Gran?” _

_ “... You ask too many questions, Tinytoa. Has anybody ever told you that?” _

_ “You have. A lot of times.” _

_ “Take the hint, then. And be thankful that I did come with you. You wouldn’t have lasted a week on your own, even out of Lalotai, if I weren’t here to look after you after she died.” _

_ “But--” _

_ “Stop talking and eat. The sooner you grow, the sooner we can go back home.” _

When he eventually did return, Lalotai turned out to be just as welcoming as it had been the first and last time he’d been there with Maui - which was to say it wasn’t welcoming at all. Still, that wasn’t a problem: Tamatoa was used to being unwelcome, and more than ready to carve a place for himself in his ancestral home. If anybody had a problem with that they could become his dinner, leave, or get over it.

Most of them got over it very,  _ very  _ quickly, and he settled down in his new lair after feasting on the previous occupants. A couple of guys decided to try challenging him for it, while another tried to occupy it while Tamatoa was out and about to look for more trinkets to add to his collection. They all became filling meals.

There were no further attempts to oust him after that: he would leave it from time to time, to look for more treasures to add to his collection - and, in case he was especially lucky, maybe even the missing heart of Te Fiti - knowing with utmost certainty nobody would dare trying to claim his lair for themselves. 

While the heart of Te Fiti was nowhere to be seen, finding Maui’s precious fishhook was almost as good, and it left him grinning so much his face hurt; wherever Maui was now, he hoped he’d somehow know he had it and despair at the thought. It was one of the very last additions to his collection: he eventually outgrew the entrance to his lair and, while he could leave any moment if he broke down a wall of the gigantic shell, he found he had no reason to.

He had enough treasure to cover every last inch of his shell, making him a living and breathing work of art few could look upon without being mesmerized. He had access to an unlimited resource of food. He was feared - and admired, he’d bet - throughout Lalotai. If his Gran could see him now, he would often think, she’d be absolutely speechless to see how far he’d come. He was the absolute best and, he kept telling himself, he was  _ home, _ with no reason to leave it ever again _. _

* * *

“And then he tried to use his tusks, but really, they had nothing on my shell--”

“How about when he hit my hook with a wooden club? I mean, really, you’ve got to be stupid--”

“And then he--”

“Guys? You do remember I was right there watching, right?”

Tamatoa blinked, then exchanged a glance with Maui. Then, they both shrugged. “Your point?”

“You don’t need to tell me what happened all over again?”

“Hey, we’re refreshing your memory!”

“It was literally one hour ago,” Moana said, but she was unable to hold back a smile, and eventually opted to tune out their chattering and just enjoy the breeze instead. They had left the vault loaded with treasure, and had returned to the island where she’d left the boat. Tamatoa had refused to let her shrink him again and was now sprawled in the sand, all fifty feet of him, picking the best bits of treasure to stick them to his shell while bragging non-stop right along with Maui.

She wondered how long could they keep that up without getting bored. 

“What do you think, babe?”

“Huh?” Moana looked up to see Tamatoa was holding something in his pincer - some kind of red gemstone.

“Where should I put this?” he asked, and turned to show off his shell. It was still nowhere near as full of shiny trinkets as it had been before, but there were quite a few shiny patches on it now. “On the front? Back? Centre? Maybe on the left, next to that really cool lamp? Oh, wait! I can put it on the wound! I need to start covering that!”

“... Wouldn’t it be best to wait for it to finish healing first?” Moana pointed out. That gained her a somewhat disappointed look, but he didn’t argue, so maybe he wasn’t entirely devoid of common sense. “I think it would look great on the right,” she added quickly, before he could go on to prove her wrong.

“Next to the sceptre? Wouldn’t that be kind of-- hey, what have you got there?”

Instead of replying, Maui lifted the small object he had picked up from the ground - something small and golden that may very well be a hairpin. “Do you think this may be it?”

Tamatoa opened his mouth, then he seemed to hesitate and took a closer look before shaking his head. “Nu-uh. That’s not it.”

Maui sighed. “I see. So it wasn’t in the Vault,” he said, and threw the hairpin in the air for Tamatoa to catch with his other pincer. It was amazing how easily he could handle tiny, delicate things with such huge claws. “Looks like we’ll have to follow Matuku’s advice and pay a visit to the Ponaturi next.”

Moana had no idea who or what the Ponaturi were, but if the grimace on Tamatoa’s face was anything to go by she shouldn’t expect anything good. “Ugh. I don’t like those guys.”

“No one does, but apparently they traded with Lalotai monsters before leaving the Vault. They probably have a chunk of your treasure with them, and may very well have the hairpin.”

That caused Tamatoa to blink, as though suddenly reminded of something, then he frowned. “So, why do you want that hairpin anyway?” he asked, leaning down on the sand to be the closest he could get to his same eye level. “It’s not anything too pretty, anyway. It was old and brittle and had lost all of its shine. I mean, I thought you wanted it back for some sappy sentimental value, but then the human said something about seeing your family and I’m not sure if she’s crazy or you’re delusional. Or both. You know they’ve got to be dead, right?”

Maui raised an eyebrow. “Really? Of course I do. But that’s something I can work around.”

“Huh?”

“I can still see them. Or at least my mother. And now that I know she might not have abandoned me--”

“Technically, she did.”

“... Not  _ meant  _ to abandon me, I just need to know. Talking to her is the only way to be certain.”

Tamatoa blinked. His eyestalks turned to Moana, and he gave her a bewildered look before he turned back to Maui when he got no answer from her. “That  _ kiiinda  _ brings us back to the main point of your family being dead and gone. How are you gonna work around that?”

Maui crossed his arms. “Once the hairpin is in my hands, I’ll be able to lead them to me. I just need to reach Cape Reinga and, well. Get into the Underworld with it. Piece of cake.”

“Oh! I get it!” Tamatoa exclaimed, nodding. “Right. Get the hairpin, sail to Cape Reinga, get into the Underworld, summon your mother. Makes sense as long as  _ you’re completely crazy, _ man!” he shouted, throwing up his pincers and causing Moana to wince. Maui didn’t move an inch, nor he said anything: he just stood still, arms tightly crossed over his chest, and Tamatoa resorted to looking down at Moana. “Human! Tell him he’s crazy! Tell him-- wait, wait a minute. You knew his plan from the start and you  _ still  _ went with him?”

“In my defense,” Maui said, “I did try to get her to stay home. She insisted to come.”

“Well, you are  _ both _ crazy!” Tamatoa snapped. “Hine-nui-te-pō, Maui! Remember what happened last time you tried to get past her? I do! It’s forever seared into my brain!”

Moana blinked, taken aback. “Wait. You tried to get into the Underworld already?”

Maui cleared his throat and looked away, uncharacteristically uneasy. “I, uh. Sort of tried to win immortality for humans. That didn’t turn out too well.”

Moana raised an eyebrow, and turned to glance at Tamatoa. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, eyes darting between her and Maui, before he finally shook his head. “Sorry, babe, but I’m keeping this one for myself. I love talking crap about him almost as much as reminding everyone how amazing I am but really, I have limits.”

Maui breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thanks.”

“It’s more for  _ her _ sake than for yours, buddy.”

“Fair enough.”

“Doesn’t change the fact you’re crazy,” Tamatoa snapped again. “Trying to get to the Underworld is suicide! How about I eat you and leave it at that? I get a snack, you die a quicker death than Hine-nui-te-pō would give you  _ and _ get into the Underworld. There. Problem solved.”

That caused Maui to roll his eyes. “Thanks. I’ll definitely consider it.”

“... Really?”

“No. I’ll try to get in and out of there alive first, if you don’t mind.”

Tamatoa scoffed. “Do what you want. Just don’t expect me to come save your butt when you’re in trouble,” he muttered. His words were met with a cold gaze. 

“I expect nothing of you. You won’t be there, and it won’t be your problem.”

“Huh?”

“You’re in this for your treasure, aren’t you?” Maui pointed out. “You get whatever treasure we find until we get the hairpin, and then we go our separate ways - so no worries, you won’t have to risk your shell. That was the deal, right?”

For a moment Tamatoa seemed taken aback, like he’d forgotten what their deal even was. He blinked and shot a quick glance at Moana before turning away with a scoff. “Right,” he muttered, folding his pincers. 

“Great. So no worries, it won’t be your problem,” Maui said lightly, and threw his hook over his shoulder. “Well, I’m off to catch some dinner. Moana, I think your chicken is trying to drown himself again.”

Busy as she was trying to keep Heihei from walking into the ocean with a rock in his beak, Moana failed to notice the uneasy expression that crossed Tamatoa’s face while he watched Maui’s retreating back. She didn’t see him as he turned back to look at his own shell, where a tiny gap concealed what they had been after all along - and she didn’t see how, as he did so, his gaze fell on the stump of his missing leg. The uneasy expression turned into a scowl, and that was it.

Tamatoa set his jaw, and said nothing.

* * *

“Are we there yet?”

“No. We’re still a full day of sailing away and you  _ know  _ it.”

“I  think I’m gonna be seasick.”

“No you’re not.”

“How would you know?”

“We travelled by boat when you could still fit into one without magical shrinking, and you never  _ once  _ got seasick.”

“Well, maybe that changed!”

“It did not. You just want to be back your usual size.”

“Of course I do! I can follow you just fine from the bottom of the ocean!”

“But then we’d have to take a different route to let you come to the surface and breathe, and it would take us four days instead of two to reach Manawa-Tane. You want to get to your treasure as quickly as possible, don’t you?”

“... Hmph. Fine. Human?”

“Yes?”

“Can I eat your chicken?”

“No.”

“The pig?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I’m hungry.”

“We have fish.”

Silence.

“... Are we there yet?”

Maui groaned, tying the rudder so that it would keep them sailing in the right direction, and sat heavily after quickly checking the stars to make sure they were stay on route. “Sometimes I wish you came with a lever. I pull the lever, you shut up. Hey, maybe if I yank one of your antennae--”

“I think I know a better way,” Moana interjected, and crouched down with a grin. “Let’s see if this still works…”

“Wha-- no, wait, hey--”

Tamatoa tried to step back and lifted his pincers, but Moana was quicker. For a moment it looked like she was going to grab his antennae after all, but then her hand reached a spot between Tamatoa’s eyestalks and gave it a scratch. Maui blinked when Tamatoa suddenly seemed to slump, his pincers  falling down on the wooden floor with a thud, eyes only half-open. He looked back at Moana. 

“Wait. So he could be turned off all along and I had no idea?”

“Shut up,” Tamatoa mumbled, but his voice was slurred and he did absolutely no effort to move. One of his antennae twitched, and it was the only movement. Moana grinned. 

“Watch this,” she mouthed, and kept scratching up towards the top of Tamatoa’s head for a few more moments. That was all it took: his eyes slipped shut and he went entirely limp. Asleep. Out like a light. 

“Well,” Maui finally said. “If we’d known  _ that _ before, we could have avoided so much trouble.”

“Better late than never, I guess,” Moana said lightly, and stood, picking up Tamatoa. His pincers and legs stayed limp, but he  _ did _ shift into a more comfortable position as soon as Moana put him down on some rolled-up rope. Pua was already sleeping soundly in a similar nest, while the chicken was locked in the hold for his safety and theirs. “So, the Ponaturi,” Moana said, sitting down with her back against the mast. “What  _ are _ they exactly?”

Maui made a face. “Nasty little goblins. Just a bit smaller than humans, with sharp claws and really really pale - and I do mean  _ pale. _ Like, white.”

“White?”

“Like the belly of a fish from the deep.”

That caused Moana to make a face as well. “That sounds ugly.”

“They are. Never seen the light of day. You’d think they’d cover that with some nice tattoos but nope. You’ll never see a Ponaturi with a tattoo. Their hair is sort of reddish, too.”

“...  _ Now _ you’re pulling my leg.”

“You can ask the crab if you don’t believe me.”

Moana’s eyes shifted to Tamatoa’s sleeping form, then she looked away, clearly having come to the conclusion that wasn’t worth waking him up. Plus, to be fair, Tamatoa wasn’t the most reliable of creatures.

“Anyway,” he went on. “Sunlight kills them, so they kind of live in caves beneath the ocean during the day and come up at night. They didn’t really like it when I slowed down the sun to make days last longer.”

Moana raised an eyebrow. “I can’t imagine why.”

A shrug. “Hey, the night was just  _ too _ long. I balanced things out. That’s all. Anyway, that’s going to play to our advantage once we reach Manawa-Tane - that would be where the entrance to the underwater caves is. They stretch quite a bit below the ocean, but we’ll have time to look. The whole night, while they’re out being disgusting goblins who do disgusting goblin things in the moonlight. Or something.”

Moana frowned. “Maybe we could try--”

Maui but her off with a shake of his head. “No we can’t. You don’t get to talk and reason your way with these guys. You never heard of them before, did you?”

“Well, no.”

“And why do you think that is?”

“Generations of my people never left Motunui. That may or may not have something to do with darkness spreading thanks to a demigod, but I forget the details.”

Seriously now? One nearly caused the end of all life across the world just once, and for some reason everyone would get all hung up on it. “... Okay, fair point. But even if you guys had travelled the ocean all along, you still wouldn’t know about these guys because no human ever met them and then got away alive to tell it.”

“That bad?”

“Let’s put it this way. When we approach the entrance in Manawa-Tane, you might see something that looks a lot like human bones,” Maui spoke again. He leaned forward, his voice lower. Around them, the ocean waves rolled and a seagull called in the distance. “Because that’s what they  _ are. _ Human bones. They use it as decoration when they’re not grinding them to make… magic… stuff,” Maui finished, making a vague gesture in the air. “Damn, the ending sounded a lot more ominous in my mind. Should have thought up a better one.”

Moana chuckled, brushing back her hair. “So, how much of it is true and how much just you trying to be scary?”

“Hey, who do you take me for? It’s all true. Almost,” he said, and chuckled, holding up his hands. “Okay, okay. I’m not totally positive they grind bones to do magic. Not entirely sure they can do magic at all, really. But everything else is true, bone decorations included. So what I’m saying is this,” he added, and reached to take something from the boat’s floor: the golden spear Moana had used to fight in the Vault. He handed it to her, and nodded towards the bracelet still at her wrist. “Come prepared. Your oar can actually sting when it hits on the ribs, but trust me, it won’t cut it with those guys. Would be useful to also shrink them if you meet any, too. Easier to beat them up.”

Moana smiled, and took the spear. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, and looked at the bracelet. “... What if I used it to make myself bigger?”

Maui shook his head. “Nope. It doesn’t work on the bearer of bracelet. Or on gods, being a godly artefact and all. I think those are about the only limitations. So there will be no shrinking Hine-nui-te-pō or turning yourself into a giant to fight her,” he added, and grinned at her obviously disappointed expression. “Sorry.”

Moana sighed. “Ah well. It was worth asking,” she said, and yawned. She put the spear down, and reached up to rub her eyes. “Can you take the first turn?”

“Sure. Get some sleep.”

She settled down quickly, and was asleep in minutes. Tamatoa stirred, and for a moment Maui thought he’d wake up screaming again - at least it would be easier to hold him down this time - but then he settled down again, head resting on his pincers. There was no sound other than that of the waves and wind, steading breathing, the pig’s light snorting and the occasional soft ‘bwook’ coming from the hold. It was oddly peaceful, really. About time.

Maui sat back, a hand on the rudder, and kept sailing into the night, humming quietly to himself.

* * *

“Are  _ those _ human bones?”

“See, what did I tell you?”

“Ponaturi are the worst, babe. Wasteful, too. I’d eat the bones, ‘cause they’re good for my shell.”

“That’s a great answer to a question I never asked.”

“Oh, you’re welcome.”

Moana chose to ignore the reply and kept her gaze fixed on the hill before them, in the middle of the tiny island they had just reached. Or at least it was something that looked much like a hill of red earth - except that there was a large yawning entrance to a cave on one side, and several smaller openings as well… with something very white and very grim hanging above each crude doorway.

Yep, definitely human bones.

“All right. So, that’s the entrance to their underwater caves?”

Maui nodded. “Yes. They’re hiding in there from the sun right now, but they’ll come out at night. They always do,” he said, and pulled a rope to turn the boat away from the island. “Best not to leave your boat on this island. You really don’t want them to get their hands on it. Or your pig. Or the chicken,” he added, but he paused and glanced down to Heihei, who was staring at the shiny trinkets on Tamatoa’s shell. It was pretty clear that, if not for Moana holding him still in her arms, he’d be trying to peck at them. 

Tamatoa scoffed. “I’m not going to fly again, man.”

“You don’t have to. We have until tonight, anyway,” Maui pointed out with a shrug. “I know where we can leave the boat, then you can come back here by walking if you want. We’ll just hide away until night, and then sneak in after they’re all out. Any treasure they have will be stored in their caves. We look for the hairpin, you take whatever you want while you’re at it, and then we’ll be gone before dawn breaks. Questions?”

“Bwook!”

“Noted. Anything else?”

“You sure I can’t eat the chicken?”

“Ask Moana.”

“Can I eat the chicken?”

“Can he eat your shinies?”

“No!”

“There’s your answer.”

* * *

“All right, they’re all out. Let’s head in.”

Moana barely got a glimpse of the Ponaturi as they poured out of the caves to the island below, but what little she saw - milky white and rusty red, clawed hands and shining eyes - would probably stay in her nightmares for a long time to come. She was really,  _ really _ relieved that none of them seemingly spotted them, and they were able to slide down the hill and into one of the entrances completely unnoticed. 

She had expected darkness and cramped spaces, but once again she was surprised: there was bioluminescent algae almost everywhere, and while somewhat eerie the glow was enough for them so see their surroundings just fine. And, once the descent was over, Moana found herself standing into a cave that seemed to be about the same size as Tamatoa’s lair in Lalotai. And Tamatoa noticed as much right away, because he immediately spoke up.

“Turn me back my size, human!”

She did almost absent-mindedly, eyes scanning the surroundings. The cave seemed empty, but there were several huge passages opening up in the walls that gave her the distinct feeling they were simply standing at the main entrance. When Maui spoke, he confirmed that. 

“All right. Never been here, but from what I heard this place is kind of a maze. Let’s stick together and-- is the lightshow absolutely necessary now?”

Tamatoa, who was once again bioluminescent, nodded. “Of course. What better way to make sure you see me all the time?”

“You’re pretty noticeable even without that. You know, being fifty feet and all.”

“What, jealous because your tattoos don’t glow?”

“Guys,  _ please.  _ Let’s just go, look for hairpins--”

“And treasure!”

“Right. For any treasure,  _ especially  _ hairpins, and then leave before dawn. I’m not looking forward to seeing any of those guys up close. So let’s just go. Maui, which way?”

“Why does  _ he  _ get to pick--”

Moana let out a frustrated groan, throwing up her hands. “Fine! You know what? I’ll pick,” she snapped, cutting him off, and walked up to the entrance on the left. “Let’s get in here and--”

_ “Moana, wait!” _

Maui’s warning came just a second too late. The moment she set foot through the passage two things happened at the same time: the faint light of bioluminescent algae faded into complete darkness, and the world seemed to tilt around her, throwing her in a yawning abyss. 

Moana fell before she had the time to even scream.

* * *

“NO! MOANA!”

Maui’s hook hit the stone wall where the entrance had been only instants before, causing it to shake and cracking the stone, but of course it was useless: he knew, even before he threw himself at it, that the entrance was entirely gone and not simply hidden by a layer of stone. It was gone because it had never truly been there: it had been an illusion, a trap, and he’d realized that too late.

“Huh. So they  _ can  _ do magic. I did wonder if the tales were-- hey, look!”

All around them, one after the other, all of the passages that had been visible in the main cave faded, leaving only one - the true passage to the rest of the underwater caves system. Maui cursed, slamming a fist against the wall and ignoring the white-hot pain that went up his arm. How could he think it would be so easy? How could he not imagine there would be at least some sort of trap behind to keep the Ponaturi’s treasures safe while they were outside? Some trickster he was, being fooled by something so simple! With a scowl, Maui pointed at the only opening left. 

“Moana must still be somewhere in here. Let’s go find her.”

“Wait, what about the trea-- no, wait, I get it!” Tamatoa added quickly when Maui turned to glare at him. “Right. First we find the human, then we look for treasure. Right? Unless we split up. I look for treasure, you look for the human, and the first one to find either yells?”

With a scoff, Maui turned his back to him and marched towards the only passage left. “Do whatever you want. I’m looking for Moana,” he snapped, and marched on without looking back once. Still, he wasn’t too surprised when Tamatoa followed him.

* * *

“Uuugh, my head…”

Moana sat up with a groan, rubbing what was already turning into a rather painful bump on her skull. The entire left side of her body ached, having taken the worst of the fall. Because she had fallen all right - she just had no idea how it could have happened, because one moment she had been upright and walking, and the next… the next…

“Maui? Tamatoa?” she called out, looking around and blinking quickly, trying to get her eyes used to the glow of bioluminescent algae again. She was into a much smaller cave now, and it seemed empty, aside from a few baskets full of fruit on one side and some bedding. She had no idea where she was, and neither Maui nor Tamatoa were anywhere in sight. Great. 

Moana felt the ground next to her, and her fingers closed on her spear. With a sigh of relief - having a weapon at hand made her feel much safer already - she stood, and glanced at the far end of the cave, where she could see one opening like a yawning mouth leading who knew where in the maze of caves. She had no idea what part of it she was in, but one thing was certain: unless she moved, she would never find out.

_ I am Moana of Motunui. I am a Wayfinder. I’ll find the way out, or carve my own. _

Moana gripped the spear more tightly, and stepped into the maze.

* * *

“Moana! Can you hear me? Moana!”

“Hey man, can you slow down?”

_ “No.” _

“But we’ve been looking for  _ hours, _ and we haven’t even found a single shiny thing! I want to check over there if there’s any treasure-- come on! The human might be in there, too!”

Maui scoffed, not breaking his stride. “If she were, she’d have  _ heard _ me.”

“But--”

“MOANA!” Maui called out again at the top of his lungs. His voice echoed through the massive caves, but other than that he got no reply. Well. Almost none. 

“Keep it down! If you scream so loud the Ponaturi might just hear you all the way up to the surface--”

Maui scoffed, turning to face Tamatoa with a scowl. “Well, let them come in! I’ll--”

“And what if  _ they _ find the human before we do?” Tamatoa shot back, causing Maui to suddenly fall silent. On his chest, Mini Maui marked a point for Tamatoa and then glanced up at Maui, shrugging. 

_ He’s got a point, _ that shrug said, and Maui had to grudgingly concede as much. 

“You’re right,” he muttered with a sigh, and lowered his hook, turning to give a helpless look at their surroundings. It was only cave after cave after cave, all of them connected, all of them looking pretty much the same, with bioluminescent algae as the only source of light. Maui had no idea where Moana may be, and he wasn’t even entirely sure he would be able to find his way back at that point. He let out a frustrated growl, running a hand through his hair. “I just have no idea what else I can  _ do. _ And if we don’t find her before sunrise… are you listening to me?”

Tamatoa didn’t reply right away: he just kept staring at something behind Maui, squinting. Then, slowly, “... Is it me, or there’s light over there?”

Maui turned so quickly that he could hear his neck cracking, but he barely noticed. Tamatoa was - annoyingly enough - right again: there was a faint light coming from an opening at the other end of the cave they were in, the kind that had nothing to do with the algae. It was moonlight. And, now that their voices were no longer echoing through that place, he could also hear something else: the sound of the ocean.

“A way out! Let’s go!”

“Wait, aren’t we looking for--”

“If she found this way out, she might be outside already. Just come!”

The way out turned out to be a large opening on a beach, with plenty of rocks and not much else - only a thin strip of land between the stone cliff and the ocean, but off from the rest of the island by massive boulders. It was deserted: no Ponaturi in sight… and no Moana, either. Still he took a few steps towards the ocean, just in case, and called out.

“Moana! Mo--”

“Oh, will you keep it down? There are ladies here trying to die in peace, if you don’t mind!”

The voice - the kind of voice that can only possibly belong to an annoyed old lady - rang out suddenly, causing Maui to recoil. He looked around, but he could see nothing and no one. And yet the voice had been so very close!

“Who’s there?”

“Hah!” a second voice spoke, sounding just as ancient as the one before. “The young these days - they will step on the elderly on their deathbed, and then expect an introduction. Have some respect for the dying, will you?”

_ Step on the elderly…? _

The rocky surface Maui was standing on suddenly moved, and realization finally kicked in. Maui hastily stepped back, staring with wide eyes as two boulders formations began to shift under the light of the moon. He only stopped when his back suddenly hit something solid - one of Tamatoa’s legs. The giant crab was staring at the scene with wide eyes. 

“Maui?” he called out, his voice oddly small. “Tell me you’re seeing what  _ I’m  _ seeing, man.”

“Yeah,” Maui found himself saying. “And I can’t believe it either.”

For the longest time now, he had thought - no, he’d been absolutely certain - that there were no other giant crabs to be found anywhere in the world; that they had all died out, and that Tamatoa was the last one left. Now it looked like he’d been wrong. Before them, stirring from a slumber, were two huge beings he had mistaken for boulders. And as they moved now, as claws and legs and eyestalks became visible with bioluminescence - much weaker than Tamatoa’s own, but bioluminescence nonetheless - it was impossible to mistake them for anything but what they were: two elderly giant crabs.

“I thought I was the last,” Tamatoa croaked. “I thought--”

“You thought wrong, young man,” one of them, whose shell was a dark hue of orange, snapped. “At least for now. That’s going to change, if you’ll have the good grace to let us die in peace. It’s been twenty thousand years of constant annoyance. It’d say we’ve earned our rest, wouldn’t you agree?”

The other, a light brown mottled with white and with a missing eye, tilted her head on one side to observe Tamatoa more closely. “Well, I’ll be. And here we thought we were the very last.”

“That’s what  _ you  _ thought,” the orange one pointed out.

“Oh, don’t even try it! We  _ both _ thought so.”

“I did not!”

“Twenty thousand years, Ngaire! Can you at least admit you’re wrong  _ once  _ in twenty thousand years? Just  _ once  _ before we die?”

“I am never wrong, sister!” was the huffing reply. Her eyestalks turned back to them.  “Never mind my sister. Ngaio just can’t admit I’m never wro-- what’s with that dumb look, young man? Close your mouth! Has your mother taught you no manners?”

Maui looked up to see that, indeed, Tamatoa was staring at them with his mouth hanging open. Not that he could blame him: that was the first time he met anybody of his same species since… he had no idea how long, but it had to be a long time. Not since his grandmother had died, and that had been a great deal of time ago. He had spent some two thousand years thinking he was the last one left and now there was proof he was not. Sure, those two looked incredibly old even by his kind’s standards, with one of both pincers in the grave, but beggars can’t be choosers and all that. 

“Hey! I’m talking to you! Close that mouth before seagulls nest in it!”

Tamatoa recoiled, and did shut his mouth. “Sorry,” he said quickly. His voice still had that oddly squeaky quality to it than only showed when he was extremely surprised, or flustered, or both. “I was just-- I never--”

“Say,” one of them - Ngaio - cut him off, eyes narrowing. “Aren’t you a little old to be alive?”

“... Huh?” 

Tamatoa blinked, and glanced down at Maui in utter confusion. Maui shrugged. “Nope. No idea what that was about,” he admitted. Those two looked a great deal older than he was. “Care to explain, uh… ladies?”

Ngaio scoffed. “Well, one would expect a male your age to have gone on to reproduce and then give nourishment to the mate and clutch! Or are you one of those deadbeats who run off  _ without _ letting their mate consume them?”

… Oh. Right.  _ That  _ kind of giant crab thing.

“Er,” Tamatoa muttered, taking an uncomfortable step back. “Actually, I… uh…”

Maui raised a hand. “To be fair, I don’t think he ever--”

_ “Maui, shut up!” _

“What? You  _ never  _ met one of your kind since--”

There was a scoff, and Ngaire turned to look at her sister. “Hah! Looks like our extinction is just delayed,” she said, and turned to look back at Tamatoa, narrowing her eyes. “There’s something familiar about you. Who was your mother?”

“Her name was… uh…” Tamatoa paused, frowning a little before brightening again. It must have been a very long time since he’d last even thought of her. “Oh, right! Tīaka. Her name was--”

“Tīaka?” Ngaire repeated, eyestalks inching closer. She blinked a couple of times, then her eyes widened. “Oh! Heard that, Ngaio? It’s Tīaka’s boy. I knew I had seen that dumb look before. I never forget a dumb face!”

“Wait, you knew-- hey!” Tamatoa protested, scowling. “What was  _ that  _ about?”

Neither of them gave any sign of having heard him: Ngaio just nodded at her sister. “I heard, I heard. I’m not deaf yet,” she grumbled with a flick of her antennae. Her functioning eye paused on Tamatoa again. “Was, huh? I take it she’s dead.”

“Well, yeah…”

“So, you’re Tupuna’s grandkid. Is she dead, too?”

Tamatoa nodded, and both sisters sighed. “She shouldn’t have left Lalotai. Or at least she should have come with us later. We were the only ones left there by then - the last ones alive, that is. But nooo, she had to leave early - all that mess for  _ you  _ to be the last one left? Talk about a waste.”

“Well, we tried to warn them that they were wasting their time, didn’t we? But of course they wouldn’t listen, oh no. They  _ never  _ listened.”

Tamatoa blinked. “Waste? What? What are you talking about?”

Their eyestalks turned back to him, and Maui found himself frowning. He had an inkling of where that chat was heading, and he didn’t like it one bit. “How about we talk about this later?” he suggested, wondering if he should just try dragging Tamatoa away from there. “I mean, we need to go back and find Moana, the night is not so young anymore and--”

“We’re talking about you, of course,” Ngaire cut Maui off, gaze still on Tamatoa. “After Tīaka’s good for nothing mate tried to run off instead of doing the honorable thing and let her eat him - she had to look after a clutch of eggs, to cry it loud! - and she lost her pincers--”

“She lost what?” Tamatoa blurted out, his voice little more than a horrified squeak, and gained himself some unimpressed looks. 

“Get your hearing checked, young man. My, she must have died early on if you didn’t even remember that. She had to fight her useless mate to consume him, and he went down eventually, but he ripped off both of her pincers in the fight. What kind of male does that?”

“I… huh....”

“Yes, exactly. Well, in the end she ate him, but of course losing her claws made her useless when monsters came for her eggs… remember that mess?”

A scoff. “Sure I do! She saved only, what, two eggs? One never hatched and from the other out came this  _ runt  _ of a larva--”

Okay, so maybe that was the right moment for Maui to end the exchange. “Ladies, we sure would love to hear more, but it looks like it’s about time we go - the moon is high, the night is going fast and we’ve kind of got a friend stuck in the underwater caves, so we really gotta go. Right, Tamatoa? C’mon, Crabcake, let’s go!”

“... And really, anybody in their right mind could tell that rickety thing - that would be you, young man - had no chance to turn out right,” Ngaire kept going, entirely ignoring Maui. Tamatoa seemed not to have heard a thing of what he had said, either: he was frozen on the spot, staring at the crabs and saying nothing at all. Any enthusiasm he had felt for meeting someone of his same species had entirely faded - and so had his bioluminescence, because now there was not a single flicker of light on him. In the dark, he could almost be mistaken for a boulder himself.

“And we told her so, too,” Ngaio muttered. “We told Tupuna as well - the only right thing her daughter could do was just eating you and get looking for another mate, to have another clutch of eggs. But nooo, Tīaka  _ had  _ to look give it a go. She was soft of heart.”

“And also soft of head,” Ngaire muttered.

“Oh yes, that too. Quite an idiot, poor dear. Anyway, she decided to leave Lalotai to give the runt a chance--”

“Hey, he’s standing right here and he’s got a _ name, _ you know,” Maui snapped, urgency starting to turn into anger. His grip on his fishhook tightened; Tamatoa, on the other hand, said nothing. He kept still as a statue and listened, eyes wide in disbelief and antennae limp.

“... To make it to adulthood, I guess,” Ngaio kept going. “We thought at least Tupuna would talk her out of it - she had some brains all right - but instead she just left with her! I think it was more to look after that poor clawless idiot she had for a daughter than for the larva, but really--”

“All right, I  _ really  _ think we’ve had enough--”

“... There were already so few of us, we could have used another successful clutch or two. It was such a dreadful waste--”

_ “I SAID ENOUGH!” _

Maui hadn’t realized how furious he was until the shout left him, and his fishhook slammed down on the ground almost on its own accord. It wasn’t an especially violent blow, considering what that hook could do, but it was enough to crack rocks and cause those two old hags to fall quiet. Beside him Tamatoa recoiled, but Maui was barely aware of it. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was thinking back of the boy he’d been when he’d returned to humans - the ones who had rejected him once. He remembered how, godly powers and all, he’d been terrified at the thought what he did may not be enough to impress, that he might be rejected again. Presenting himself to them again had felt like a test, and he wasn’t sure what he would have done if he’d failed it.

“You know what, ladies? I’d have to talk until morning to list  _ all _ the reasons why you’re dead wrong. As we  _ don’t  _ have so much time and you wouldn’t understand half of it anyway, here’s the deal - we go back to more important matters and you just go back to  _ dying. _ Believe me, we won’t interrupt you again,” Maui snapped, and turned to leave, throwing the hook over his shoulder. He elbowed Tamatoa’s pincer. “C’mon, buddy. We’re outta here.”

“Maui…?”

“Nothing worth listening here. Let’s just go back and find Moana.”

There were mutters and grumbles behind him, the two old hags clearly complaining over the rudeness of youth, but Maui entirely ignored them. He marched back to the opening they had come out of, and finally turned. Tamatoa was walking slowly behind him, still silent and staring down at his pincers, antennae limp.

“You know that was a load of crap, right?” Maui found himself saying without thinking, causing Tamatoa to flinch. “Look, you held down the  _ sun, _ okay? That’s more than your entire species has done in the whole time it existed. I think your mother and grandmother had the right idea. Those two bottom-feeders? They’ve got no clue.”

Tamatoa paused for a moment, then looked away. “Right,” he replied, his voice flat.

“Listen, I  _ mean _ it. Can you just… okay now, you look nothing like a kicked puppy, so can you stop trying to? You’re making this weird,” Maui snapped, and grinned when Tamatoa scowled at him, clearly annoyed. “There.  _ Much _ better. If I didn’t know you I’d almost think your let those two harpies get under your skin. Shell. Whichever. Which is ridiculous, isn’t it? I mean, you’re far too  _ tough _ for that...”

Tamatoa scoffed like the mere thought was indeed ridiculous. “Of course! They clearly had no idea what they were talking about. I--” he trailed off, and immediately perked up. “Oh! I know!”

“You know what?”

“I’ve got to get shiny again, of course.”

“... Huh?”

“Come on, man, if they saw me with more treasure on my shell they’d  _ completely _ change their mind! What are we waiting for? Let’s go back looking!”

Maui blinked. “I… no, wait. The whole point is that it shouldn’t matter whether--” he tried, but Tamatoa was already walking past him and to the entrance. 

“Come on, we don’t have all night. We have more treasure to find! And the human,” he added, pausing to tap a claw on his chin. “Right, Moana first. She’s smart. Wouldn’t want to lose her here.”

He disappeared into the cave without another word, and Maui could only follow him with a sigh, shaking his head. Still, it didn’t escape him how he had called Moana by name for the very first time.


	12. Last

When he returned to the village whose ship Tamatoa had sunken last, bringing their stolen goods back to them and promising that the monster would never again bother them, Maui was met with celebrations he failed to enjoy and happiness he failed to match.

He accepted their praise, smiled back at them, toasted with them, watched the dances around the fire  and, before long, his smiles were almost genuine. It was good to watch the humans’ relief at having something so important back, at knowing they were finally safe. 

_ But they are not. Tamatoa is still around.  _

_ He won’t dare. Not after this.  _

_ That’s what you thought last time, too. _

Maui did his best to chase away the thought. He laughed, he drank, he boasted, he re-enacted the fight before the adoring crowd; with food in his belly, drink in his veins and praise in his ears, he almost enjoyed himself. Almost, because when he reached out to rip away an imaginary leg he froze, and he could swear he tasted something bitter in his throat. He held nothing in his hands, but for a moment he almost felt the wetness of blood on his fingers, the final twitches of the torn appendage against his palms. 

No one noticed, though, because the next moment the chief - well in his cups himself - was speaking, his voice booming. “Thank the Gods you were there!” he called out, and lifted yet another cup. “To Maui, for slaying the monster!”

“TO MAUI!”

_ I didn’t slay him,  _ Maui wanted to say, but before he could even open his mouth a young boy looked up at him. 

“My brother’s spirit can be at peace now that you killed the monster who sank his boat,” he said, solemn-eyed, and any semblance of pride turned into ash in Maui’s mouth. 

_ I did not. I couldn’t do it.  _

For a moment the confession almost, almost left him. But it felt all the world like he’d admit to a weakness and, after another look at their beaming faces, he decided not to tell the truth. They felt safe at long last, and he didn’t want to take that from them, to watch all that joy turn into fear and loathing yet again. So he said nothing. 

Still, a few days later, once the celebrations had ended, he took it upon himself to return to Tamatoa’s island to make absolutely sure he had gotten the message. He didn’t want to do it - didn’t want to even  _ think _ about that backstabber again - but he had misjudged the effectiveness of his warning once already and humans had paid the price. He wouldn’t take that risk now.

_ Kill him, then. _

_ No. It won’t be needed. _

Still, there was no further warning to be given, because by the time he returned the island was deserted. Tamatoa’s cave was empty, neither him nor his treasure anywhere in sight; that was what convinced Maui that he wasn’t just away for a stroll on the bottom of the ocean. He was just… gone. Even standing on top of the highest cliff in the island, he couldn’t see him anywhere. It was as if--

“If you want my guess, he’s off to Lalotai.”

The voice rang out suddenly, causing Maui to wince. He turned abruptly, hook held high, but he immediately lowered it when he saw the figure before him. Head of a bird, body of a man, tail of a fish; the Manaia in one of their many forms, the messenger between the world of the living and the domain of the spirits. 

They would go missing shortly after that day, a few decades before Maui’s doomed attempt at taking the heart of Te Fiti; gone from the world without the living or the dead having the slightest clue of where they may be. But right there and then, they were standing before Maui, who hadn’t heard them coming. Few ever did, until they decided to make their presence known. 

“Never asked to hear your guess, but since you already shared it, whatever. I take it you watched us?”

“Yes.”

“You know, there’s this funny game some of us like to play. It’s called ‘minding your own business’. You should give it a go.”

The Manaia shrugged. Despite their bizarre form, that gesture carried a kind of otherworldly elegance. “Can you blame me for keeping an eye on you, after you messed with Hine-nui-te-pō?” he asked, tilting their head on one side. “You almost cost me my job. What point is there for a messenger to the world of spirits if anyone can come and go as they please?”

Maui sighed, shifting his weight a bit awkwardly. “... Right. Well. I won’t be trying to get into the Underworld again, that’s for sure.”

The Manaia chuckled, and their form shifted in that of a sea serpent, covered in fish-like iridescent scales. “That’s what you say now, but It seems to me that you very nearly did. The thieving crab almost sent you in it the traditional way.”

Maui snorted. “Yeah,  _ almost _ being the key word. He was too slow, he didn’t kill me and here I am. So, you think he went to Lalotai?”

“That was the direction he took. Will you follow him to deal the last blow?”

Maui blinked, taken aback. “What?”

“Is that not the reason why you returned? To finish him?”

“Wha… no, I--” Maui paused and turned to the west - towards Lalotai. He stared for a few moments and then scowled. He glanced down on his chest, where an effigy of himself was left holding onto the sun on its own. “You know what? Never mind why I came here. It doesn’t matter. He’s exactly where he belongs, and well away from humans. That’s all I need to know. We’re done,” he added, and lifted his fishhook. _ “Chee-hoo!” _

He flew towards the sun without pausing to look back once, unaware of the fact the being he was leaving behind would not be seen again by a living or dead soul for a long time to come.

* * *

“If I get out of here I will never,  _ ever  _ set foot in another cave.”

Moana’s exasperated voice bounced from one wall to the other for a few moments before losing itself into nothingness. There was no other sound, no reply: only complete silence, as it had been since she’d begun exploring the maze. Silence, cave after cave covered in bioluminescent algae, absolutely no treasure, no sounds and most of all not a soul to be found. After wandering for what felt like hours, Moana felt she actually wouldn’t mind terribly meeting a few Ponaturi; fighting for her life would probably be better than feeling like she was moving in a circle in complete nothingness. 

Ancestors, maybe she  _ was _ moving in a circle; there was some sort of magic imbued in that place, and perhaps it was meant to keep her in there, unable to find her way out.

_ A Wayfinder who can’t wayfind. Now that’s a funny joke. _

Moana made an effort to chase away the thought and keep moving. Maui and Tamatoa were somewhere in there - maybe they were lost, too? - and she would have to run into them sooner or later. Possibly sooner, before the sun rose, because if that happened while they were still in there--

A sudden noise severed all further thought, causing Moana to recoil and turn to the cave’s entrance with her spear held tightly in her hand. The sound came again, and now she could tell what it was - massive steps.

_ Tamatoa! _

Moana opened her mouth to call out, but relief disappeared as quickly as it had filled her, leaving only dread behind. Something wasn’t right: she knew what Tamatoa’s steps sounded like, and that was not it. There was also the sound of something being dragged across the stone floor, something huge and heavy, and then a sudden hiss. It made her think of the sound a large fire would make if suddenly extinguished with water, and it made her grip the spear a bit tighter, mind working at full speed.

Whatever was coming her way was big - huge, even - and it would probably outrun her if she tried to flee, just like Tamatoa had when she’d distracted him with a fake heart of Te Fiti. Facing it was the best option she had, especially with a bracelet that could make the size of whatever… thing was lurking ahead irrelevant. She just had to be fast, use it before the creature could get to her, and then she’d actually have the upper hand.

Or at least so she hoped.

There were more steps and, yet again, something sliding across the floor, followed by another hissing, breathy sound. It was close now, so close, just behind the corner, and Moana knew she had to act before it saw her first. She had the element of surprise, and she needed to use it. 

Moana flattened herself against the wall near the entrance, and listened. The huge steps were coming closer… closer still… right by her...!

_ Now! _

She leaped out of her hiding place onto the being’s path, and lifted the hand with the bracelet before wasting any time looking.  _ “Iti haere!” _

“Wha-- hey! HEY! What gives?”

Moana blinked, arm still raised, the spear still in her hand. She lowered both slowly, and tilted her head on one side. “Oh,” she said. 

“Oh?  _ Oh? _ That’s not going to cut it! Turn me back this very inst-- hey! Careful where you point that! You could hurt-- oh, wait. That’s the point, I wager?”

Moana found herself smiling a bit. “Glad you’ve caught on. What are you doing here, uh… Pirifei?”

The red lizard - who had been a  _ giant _ red lizard only moments before, but was now no bigger than Tamatoa in his own shrunken state - shot her a seriously annoyed look with gleaming yellow eyes. “It’s Pilifeai, if you don’t mind.”

“Sorry. Pilifeai. I won’t get it wrong again,” she repeated agreeably, but did not lower the spear. “So, what are you doing here?”

A scoff. “Well, what does it look like? I was following you guys.”

Moana raised an eyebrow. “You say that like it’s normal.”

“Well, what else I could do?” Pilifeai protested. “I waited forever for you to come out - all right, so maybe a hour? - and then got bored. I missed out all the fun in the Vault already. I wanted to come in this time and see how you were doing. Not too well, huh? Those two idiots aren’t with you. I take it you’re lost. And look, so am I. We have something in common, who would have guessed? Here’s an idea on how to celebrate this discovery: you turn me back my size right away! Huh? How about that?”

Moana put the spear down, but made no gesture to lift the hand with the bracelet. “You don’t really think that’s going to work, do you?”

Pilifeai sighed. “Not really.I assume you’re worried that I’d turn you into a snack the moment you do?”

“Just a bit, yes.”

“I didn’t try to do you any harm since I began following you! I just want to see what’s going to happen with those two idiots, honest. I have no intention to get involved.”

Moana had to concede that he really hadn’t tried anything, but on the other hand it may simply have been due to the fact she had hardly ever been apart from Maui and Tamatoa until then. “How many reasons do I have to trust you?”

The lizard opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He blinked up at Moana. Moana’s eyebrow went up again. His tongue flickered through the air for a few moments before he finally sighed. The red spikes on his head seemed to go somewhat limp. “Fair enough. You don’t really have any, do you?”

“Nope. As far as I was told, you would have eaten Tamatoa if Maui hadn’t intervened.”

“He didn’t intervene as much as he stumbled in at the wrong moment, but fine,” Pilifeai muttered with a scoff. “Still, I’d like to point out the irony of holding me accountable for trying to eat your buddy, who just happens to have tried to eat  _ you  _ before you were buddies.”

Moana wasn’t sure she would have described Tamatoa as her ‘buddy’, but she found she had nothing to object to the definition either, so in the end she simply shrugged. “He earned my trust.”

Pilifeai grinned up at her. Even smaller, his fangs were still sharp. “I see. What do I have to do to be afforded such luxury?”

Well. Now that was something Moana could work with. “Help me find the way out,” she said, crouching down. “I can’t seem to find it on my own, but we might just find it together. Once I’m back with Maui and Tamatoa, I’ll restore you to your usual size.”

The lizard looked up at her with narrowed eyes. “And how do I know you won’t let them just squash me the moment we find them?”

“You have my word.”

“So my word is not enough, but yours is?”

“It’s all I can give you. On my ancestors, I promise I will restore you to your normal size if you help me find my friends.”

Pilifeai’s snout scrunched up in a grimace. “Ugh, you humans and your ancestors. Did you know that some of them kicked my tail all the way back to Lalotai just for spending some time in a lagoon?”

“Did they?”

“Yes! Humans tried to get me to leave on their own, with some pathetic spears like that one, but of course it was like they were throwing toothpicks at me. When they realized I was just too much for them, they prayed to their ancestors and they ganged up on me. Talk about unfair. Wait, you’re not going to send your ancestors after me, are you?” Pilifeai added, suddenly alarmed. Moana opened her mouth to tell him that of course not, she wasn’t even sure how one could do it, but she stopped herself just on time. Instead, she shrugged. 

“If you help me, I won’t call my ancestors on you.  _ And  _ I will restore you to your full size.”

Pilifeai glared at her for a few more moments before letting out a sigh. “And we’re back to the problem of me having to trust your word, aren’t we?”

“Afraid so. Have we got a deal?”

They did.

* * *

“Found anything?”

Maui’s voice reached Tamatoa from the next cave over, causing him to sigh, eyes wandering across yet another treasure-less room. This one seemed to be used for storing food, and was filled with fruit, coconuts and dried fish - but nothing even vaguely shiny. Not that he was one to shy away from a free meal, but at the moment he had other priorities. So it was a disappointment, if one that could be mitigated by a bite or two.

“Tamatoa?” Maui’s voice came again, and the giant crab turned back to the exit of the room. 

“Nope,” he said through a mouthful. “No treasure and no human.”

There was a moment of silence, then Maui peered into the cave. “... Are you eating?”

“Just having a snack.”

“Does this look like the right moment to you?”

“I’m stressed, man. I eat when I’m stressed.”

A groan. “Just get your butt over here and let’s go back looking. I’m not sure how much time we have left before daybreak, but it can’t be much.”

“Is this the part where I point out we’d have more time if you hadn’t decided to make days longer and nights shorter?”

Maui rolled his eyes. “Don’t even start. And I didn’t do it on my own - you helped, remember? You got a pearl in exchange and it’s not like I had to drag you there kicking and screaming.”

Tamatoa’s gaze fell on Maui’s chest, where a tattoo showed him holding onto the sun all by himself. For a moment he almost snapped that it was a wonder he did remember that detail, given how he’d been erased from the narrative, but he found he wasn’t in the mood for another argument. He wanted to find the treasure, find the human, and show himself to those two old hags so shiny he’d blind them. And Maui was right on something: they had little time to do it without the Ponaturi returning to the caves and making everything a lot more complicated. 

“Fine, fine,” he finally conceded, stepping away from the pile of food. “But I really hope you have a better plan than just walking around-- whoa, hey!” Tamatoa let out a yelp when something gave in beneath him, and one of his legs suddenly sank  _ through _ the rocky floor, throwing him entirely off balance. He fell with a grunt, causing the cave to shake, and realized his leg was trapped when he tried to lift himself. “Wha…?”

Maui, who had approached quickly, took one look at him before concern gave way to a grin. “Well, looks like the floor gave in. Maybe  _ someone _ should lay off snacks for a while, huh?”

“Oh, har har,” Tamatoa grumbled, and tried again to pull his leg free - but he’d fallen sideways at an awkward angle, and getting himself in the right position to pull his leg back up through the hole in the rock was trickier than he’d expected. 

“Wait, let me help,” Maui said, and moved in so quickly that Tamatoa had no time to retort - not until he’d grabbed his trapped limb, and panic suddenly flared up, causing him to cry out and his bioluminescence to flicker out of control.

_ “No! Wait! Don’t!” _

The panicked screech caused Maui to immediately still and let go. He looked up at him, and confusion gave way to realization after only one moment. He looked away, and reached up to rub the back of his neck. “... I won’t do anything to you. Honest. I’m just gonna help,” he said, still not looking at him.

Tamatoa knew that was true, of course. Deep down he’d known from the start that Maui had no intention to tear off another of his limbs, and that he only meant to help him dislodge it from the hole. Yet, the moment he’d felt Maui grabbing his leg, all rational thinking had gone right out of the window, leaving only mindless terror behind - and now that it was subsiding, Tamatoa actually felt kind of stupid for shrieking like that. 

“Ah. Right. I was just-- you, huh. Stepped on one of my antennae. Yes. That was it,” Tamatoa mumbled, getting his bioluminescence back under control. There was no possible physical way Maui could have actually stepped on either of his antennae, and of course Maui knew it, but he immediately nodded at his explanation.

“Sure. Sorry about that. Will be more careful,” he said, and grabbed Tamatoa’s leg again, his movements slower. “Okay. On three you throw your weight on the left and I pull, all right?”

“All right.”

“Good. One… two…”

“Wait!”

“What now?”

“... Be gentle.”

“I’m  _ so _ very happy no one is here to listen to this exchange, Crabcake.”

“Hey, I’m delicate!”

“I’ll pretend not to have heard that. Let’s start this over, okay? One, two… three!”

Tamatoa forced himself to bite back the fear that threatened to resurface as soon as he felt Maui’s grip on his limb tightening, and just did as he was told: he threw his weight to his left and pulled just as Maui did. There was a scraping sound, some stone crumbling and falling down below, and Tamatoa’s leg was free within instants - all in one piece, the plaques covering it hardly even scratched. The joint felt a little sore when he stood and put his full weight on it, but it was hardly even pain. He could take it. 

“I’m sure that floor was already brittle when I stepped on it,” Tamatoa muttered after taking a few steps. “Nothing to do with snacks. You know what, it was probably the weight of my shinies that-- hey, what are you looking at?”

For a few moments, Maui didn’t reply: he just stayed perched beside the hole, peering into it. When he glanced up, his face was split in a grin. “Come take a look, Crabby. Looks like you hit the jackpot.”

Tamatoa blinked. “I did?” he asked, approaching to take a look. He crouched down, eyestalks moving closer to the hole. “What do you-- oooh, I see!” he exclaimed, and grinned. Below them, there was something glowing in the light of the bioluminescent algae: it was treasure, heaps and heaps of it. “Their treasure stash! We found it!”

Maui laughed. “No,  _ you _ found it,” he said, giving his pincer a light bump with his fist. “Actually, you found a whole part of this place I didn’t think existed. I was sure this had to be the lowest level, but I was wrong. And you know what that means?”

“Yes, that this place is way too big for that bunch of-- oh, wait!” Tamatoa exclaimed, antennae perking up. “The human! Moana might be there - that’s what you mean, right? Isn’t it?”

Maui’s grin widened even more. “Jackpot again. Well, looks like we’ve got more caves to look into. Think you can widen the hole enough for both of us to go down, or shall I do it?”

Tamatoa laughed, and lifted his pincers. “If I can?” he said, snapping his claws. “Move aside and watch how it’s done.”

He made a short job of the stone floor: a few well-placed blows were all it took for it to crumble, which proved it was already brittle to begin with. Tamatoa fell through it, but he was perfectly happy to land on top of the pile of treasure. He would also have been perfectly happy to  _ stay _ in it, really. 

“This is it, Maui! This is  _ definitely  _ some of my treasure! I’d recognize that diamond anywhere! I’m sure those hags will be at a loss for words when they see it!”

“That’s great. Think you can stop rolling in it now?”

“Two more minutes!”

“We need to look for Moana.”

“One minute? I’ll just stick all I can to my shell and--”

“We’ll pick it up on our way back. Come  _ on, _ Crabcake. Moana first and treasure second, remember?”

Right, Tamatoa thought, priorities. With a regretful sigh, he forced himself to get up and walk away from the pile of treasure. “Fine, fine. The human first,” he said, and glanced around. There were a few openings leading to  _ yet _ more caves and passages in the wall, but some of them were definitely too small for him to fit through… and the human was the one who could shrink him. “So, what now? We split up?”

Maui followed his gaze, and nodded. “Seems like the best plan. You check out the bigger ones. Use a claw or something to mark your way on the wall, because last thing we need is getting separated for good,” he added, throwing the fishhook over his shoulder. “First one to find her yells. We’ll be meeting again here. Questions?”

“Did you like the song?”

Maui looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. “You mean the one with that entire section on how I was abandoned, I wasn’t tough enough and you were going to eat me?” he asked, deadpanned. “That song?”

Tamatoa shifted a bit. “... On second thought, don’t answer. I’ll ask the human.”

* * *

“So, are you going to keep doing that for long?”

“Doing what?”

“Licking the air.”

“Do you want us to get out of here or not, human? I’m working on it.”

“... By licking the air?”

Pilifeai gave an indignant snort. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m smelling my surroundings.”

“With your tongue?”

“We don’t all work like you humans do, thank the Gods,” the lizard said sourly, and flickered his tongue through the air yet again before heaving a sigh. “Still nothing.”

“What smell are you trying to pick up, exactly?”

The lizard shrugged. “The crab’s would be my best bet. He positively  _ reeks _ of Lalotai, no matter how many baubles he puts on himself and how much he claims he’s better than the rest of us,” he muttered. “Unless he and the demigod got separated as well, if we find him, we find both. At which point we’d all still be lost, but we could work out something together. Would be good if you remembered you promise, by the way. I help you, you turn me back.”

“I won’t forget it,” Moana promised. “So, how  _ did _ you get in without the Ponaturi noticing you?”

Pilifeai shrugged as she walked through another passage. “I swam. There’s an underwater entrance, too. No idea how they keep it from flooding the whole place since we’re beneath the sea - some kind of magic trick, I guess - but it was a good way to get in. Except that as soon as I stepped into a passage--”

“... You felt like you were falling, and winded up someplace else?”

“Hu-uh,” the lizard mumbled, and shot her a look. “You too, eh?”

“Yes,” Moana admitted, and gave a small smile. “Fell in the same trap. Another common ground, I guess.”

“Hah! True enough,” Pilifeai sniggered. “Oh, and also fish. Do humans still like fish?”

“Oh, very much.”

“That’s another point. I also like sunbathing, but there isn’t much sun to be had in Lalotai.”

Moana frowned. “Why do you live in it, then?”

“Oh, last time I went out humans decided I was bothersome - I supposed I didn’t try too hard to be a good neighbour, to be absolutely fair - and their ancestors sort of chased me back in it. It was one exhausting swim to get them off my tail, let me tell you. I’m not too eager to repeat the experience,” he said, and paused a few moments to let his tongue flicker through the air before moving on and speaking again. “Lalotai is not half bad when you get used to it, you know.”

Moana didn’t think she’d last long enough in it to learn to enjoy it in the first place, but decided not to say as much. “No place like home?” she guessed instead.

“Yes, that’s the gist of it. That sparkly primadonna, though - always complaining about the bad rep Lalotai monsters get and trying to set himself apart. Everyone who heard about him was snickering about it. I can’t for my life begin to guess why in the world he decided to settle there in the first place - he didn’t even grow up there. I don’t think he even likes it.”

“Maybe he wanted to return to the home of his ancestors?” Moana guessed, but she wasn’t too sure herself. For her entire life she had felt the call to the sea, the call to the ways of her forefathers - but, if Pilifeai was telling the truth, that didn’t seem to be the case with Tamatoa. 

As she’d half-expected, Pilifeai snorted. “If that was it, it wasn’t a great idea. His ancestors liked it, sure enough, but they weren’t like him. No delusions of grandeur, if you get what I mean - at least not the few I met. I tended to stay out of the way, since I was kind of small myself by the time they were dying out. They’d sooner get algae growing on their shells for blending than trinkets to stand out, and wouldn’t get all offended if someone called them bottom-feeders - that’s what they were. Tamatoa is--”

“Different?”

“A delusional idiot.”

“... I think ‘different’ works just as well.”

Pilifeai laughed. “Hah! You’re tender-hearted, aren’t you? Now I see why he took a shine on you. Just stroke his ego a bit and--” he suddenly trailed off and froze before flickering his tongue in the air yet again, causing Moana to blink.

“What is it? Are you smelling something?”

The lizard looked up at her and bared his fangs in a grin. “I smell idiot crab, that’s what. This way!” he called out, and darted forward, so quick that Moana had to run to keep up. And run she did because really, she’d had enough of that creepy place and she’d feel so,  _ so  _ much better once she found Maui and Tamatoa again.

* * *

“Human! Hey, babe! Are you there? Just yell or something!”

Tamatoa paused to listen, but he could hear nothing except the fading echo of his own voice through the caves. He let out a sigh, antennae going limp. Just how much further did that maze go? He was beginning to feel that place may turn out to be as big as Lalotai or something. How could the Ponaturi find their way out to the surface every night without half of them getting hopelessly lost? At that rate they were never going to find the human and--

_ “Maui! Tamatoa!” _

That caused Tamatoa to stop in his tracks, eyes widening and antennae perking up again. He hadn’t just imagined that, had he? He opened his mouth to call out again, but he didn’t have to: the next moment he heard the sound of running steps, and right afterwards Moana came running into the cave on those skinny little legs of hers, stopping just short of crashing against one of his pincers. She looked out of breathe but perfectly, wonderfully  _ fine. _

“Hey, Maui! It’s the human! I found her!” Tamatoa called out, his voice echoing through the maze before he turned back her. He picked her up with one pincer, bringing her before his eyes to check her over. “All in one piece, babe?”

She laughed, holding onto his claw with both hands. “Pretty sure I am.”

“I think you almost gave Maui a heart attack, you know. Don’t go off like that ever again.”

Another laugh. “Oh, I won’t. I’m  _ so  _ happy to see you.”

Tamatoa blinked. “You are?” he asked, unable to hold back some puzzlement before he caught himself and grinned broadly. “I mean--  _ of course _ you’re happy to see me! Who wouldn’t be happy to lay their eyes on this magnificence?” he added, lifting her up on top of his head, where she could sit and hold onto the base of his antennae. “You’d have to be blind not to, ri--”

“Hey! HEY! You promised, remember? Turn me back!”

_ … Huh? _

Tamatoa looked down, and it took him a couple of moments to find the source of the angry, squeaky voice - but, once he did, he found himself grinning so wide that his face hurt. “Well well well,” he muttered, taking a step forward and causing the tiny,  _ tiny _ red lizard to scrambled back in alarm. “Looks like  _ someone _ just got the bracelet treatment. An improvement, really. You’re almost cute. So cute I could eat--”

Pilifeai’s eyes darted up to Moana. “Er. Human? I think this would be an  _ excellent _ moment to-- no, wait! Stay away!”

“Tamatoa, stop!” Moana called out, causing him to freeze and turn one eyestalk to look at her. “I promised him you wouldn’t hurt him. So don’t.”

What, seriously? Tamatoa frowned, disappointed. “But  _ I _ didn’t promise anything!”

“Please. He helped me find you.”

“Oh. I thought  _ I _ had found you?”

“Well, it kinda worked both ways, didn’t it?”

“I could smell your stench twenty caves away,” Pilifeai spoke up, gaining himself a glare from Tamatoa and an unimpressed retort from Moana. 

“... Look, I’m trying here, but you’re not helping your cas--”

_ “Moana!” _

“Ooof! Hey! Easy, man!” Tamatoa protested, but Maui - who had somehow landed right on the back of his neck, barely missing the now closed-up wound - paid him absolutely no mind: he just grabbed Moana and held her in a crushing hug. 

“Oh, you’re safe! You almost gave me a heart attack!”

She laughed, throwing her arms around his neck. “So I was told. I’m fine, really. Did you--”

“A-hem.  _ Excuse _ me. Aren’t you forgetting a little detail here?”

Maui let go of Moana and blinked, looking down at the lizard from all the way up the top of Tamatoa’s head. “... Pilifeai?”

“In the scales,” was the dry reply. “I helped your friend find you, but no worries, I don’t want your thanks. I’d just really like her to keep her half of the bargain and turn me back my size.”

Maui tilted his head on one side. “Did you follow us in here?”

“Well…”

“Of course he did. Creep,” Tamatoa muttered, and turned an eyestalk back to Moana. “Are you sure I can’t eat him?”

“Sorry, but no. I promised to turn him back his size as soon as we were out of here.”

“What? Not true! You promised to turn me back as soon as we found your friends!”

Tamatoa frowned. “That doesn’t seem like a good idea. This place is too small for both of us.”

Pilifeai scoffed. “Oh, spare me that crap! The only thing that’s too small is your stupid brai--”

“No, I mean, literally,” Tamatoa cut him off, looking around. “I mean, most of these caves are big enough for me to walk in, but both of us? Would be a tight fit. The human is right, you should wait until we’re out.”

“Oh,” Pilifeai said, and looked around. “... Fair enough. I hadn’t thought about it. So, did  _ you _ find a way out?”

Tamatoa grinned. “Sure we did! Oh, and we also found their treasure stash, human! You won’t believe how much of my stuff is in it…!”

* * *

As it turned out, the hairpin wasn’t among the trinkets and gems to be found in the Ponaturi’s treasure stash: Maui had looked through it all, kept an eye on everything Tamatoa was sticking to his shell, and yet he had seen nothing that looked even vaguely like it might be a hairpin. It looked like they’d have to go find the Taniwha next, and hope that they had it. 

Because after  _ that, _ Maui would be all out of ideas and places to look. He said nothing, but of course Moana had to guess, because she put a hand on his arm as they walked. “Don’t worry. We’ve defied worse odds,” she said. “And besides--”

“Oh, look, we’re out now! You can turn me back to normal,” Pilifeai pointed out, cutting her off. 

They had just stepped through the opening he and Tamatoa had found earlier, the one leading to a secluded beach. And just on time, too: the sun was not out yet, but the sky was so much lighter than before, dawn just about to break. The Ponaturi were probably returning in their caves already, but even if they found out right away that their stash of treasure was gone they would be unable to exit the caves again until sundown. At least that was a problem they’d managed to avoid.

Beside him, Moana sighed and restored Pilifeai to his normal size. The giant lizard, now once again  _ giant, _ shook his head as though trying to rid himself of a bad thought. “Finally! Being small is dreadful. How do you manage-- ow!”

“Get out of the way, creep! You’re blocking the exit!”

“What happened to your manners, crab?”

“I  _ ate _ my manners,” was the retort, followed by the snap of a claw. Pilifeai grumbled, but he did move out of the way, and Tamatoa walked out of the opening just as the first rays of sun appeared at the horizon, causing the shiny patches on his shell - now far bigger than before - to sparkle, and him to grin. “That’s  _ so _ much better. Give me a minute to show off, will you?”

Maui gave a guffawing laugh. “A minute, sure,” he muttered, leaning against the stone cliff and elbowing Moana lightly. “This is going to take a while and will probably involve another song or two. Get comfy,” he said, causing her to blink in confusion. 

“Wait, what’s going on?”

“You just watch.”

And they all did watch when Tamatoa walked up to the boulders that were not boulders at all, sometimes that was now made clearer by the light of the dawn. Moana realized what she was looking at after a few moments and let out a small gasp. “Are those…?”

“Yep,” Maui said, and he was about to add he had been surprised too, but before he could say a word Tamatoa spoke up, walking up to the sleeping giant crabs with the most self-satisfied expression he had ever seen on him… and really, that was saying a lot. 

“Hey there! Wakey wakey! Want to see something really amazing?” he asked, walking closer. “Just a word of warning, you might feel intimidated by how glorious I am but hey, don’t let it keep you from having a good look, all right? I’m not at my  _ very _ best yet, but still pretty impressive if I say so myself! So, what do you have to say now?”

No answer.

“Huh. Heavy sleepers, aren’t you? C’mon! Just wake up! You don’t want to miss this!”

Nothing, not the most minute movement - not even the slightest rise and fall to indicate that they were--

_ Wait, _ Maui thought.  _ Wait a sec. _

_ The young these days - they will step on the elderly on their deathbed, and then expect an introduction. Have some respect for the dying, will you? _

_ We go back to more important matters and you just go back to dying. Believe me, we won’t interrupt you again. _

Realization -  _ well, that was quick _ \- hit Maui like a splash of icy water, and for a few moments he could just be still and stare as Tamatoa reached to knock on the shell of the closest one - Ngaio? - before suddenly taking a step back. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to: realization was plain in his widened eyes, in the pincer frozen in mid-air, in the way his antennae went limp as he took another step back.

“Maui…?” Moana whispered, a hand on her mouth. On his left, Pilifeai frowned in confusion and glanced down at them. 

“Wait, I’m lost,” he said. “More giant crabs? Wasn’t he the last one left?”

Maui didn’t reply right away: he just stared at the scene for a few more moments before he turned away, a grim expression on his face. “Well,” he said quietly, “he is now.”


	13. The Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. We all knew this was coming. 
> 
> (Also, the whole Giant Headless Warrior Guy thing is based on the fact that, in an early version of Moana, Tamatoa was supposed to be a giant headless warrior from an Oceanic myth. I tried and failed to know more about said myth, and eventually decided to borrow him for the fic because hey, why not.)

Losing his fishhook had felt all the world like losing a limb.

When the gods had created it and given it to him to mark his passage to adulthood - he’d been a boy barely grown, really, but so very certain he was ready to carve his way in the world and so damn  _ insistent  _ about it than even Tagaloa had to give in - Maui had felt  _ whole. _

Before, he’d been an abandoned boy the Ocean and the gods had taken pity on and gifted with immortality; with that in his hand, however, he was so much more. He was  _ Maui  _ \- shapeshifter, demigod of wind and sea. He was powerful. He was strong. He had the power to  to accomplish feats humans could only dream of, and the humans he returned: he had been a weak and powerless newborn when he’d been thrown into the sea to drown, but certainly humans would love him now that he could do so much for them, wouldn’t they?

They would, and they  _ did. _  For centuries to come, and then for thousands of years, Maui’s name became as well known as the name of the good winds, of the good currents that brought voyagers home, as the stars in the night sky. He was their hero, the one who did more for them than any of the gods ever had.

He lifted the sky for them. He pulled island out of the oceans for them. He harnessed winds, he slowed down the sun, he gifted them the secret to make fire for themselves so that they would no longer need to approach volcanoes for flames. He gave them the coconut tree, an endless source of food, for the days their nets failed to catch enough fish; he fought monsters for them, to keep them from harm.

Until the day he’d failed them, because he had failed to realize which monster he should guard them from. And then he’d failed them again, when he’d believed a warning would be enough to keep Tamatoa from striking again and he’d turned out to be so, so wrong.

But maybe he’d been wrong all along. He’d thought he could protect humans from all harm, but the truth was that he could not: there were so many dangers, too many, and he couldn’t be everywhere at once. His power alone was not enough: humans should have the means to protect themselves when he couldn’t help, a power of their own. And Maui thought he knew precisely  _ where  _ he could find it. He knew how to reach it, too, and how to get away quickly - he had thought of everything.

Except of the part where a shrieking demon of earth and fire would appear out of nowhere and strike him right out of the sky, of course. He’d failed to account for that bit, and he’d paid for it dearly: stuck in a deserted island, the heart of Te Fiti and his fishhook both gone. Without the familiar weight of the fishhook in his hand, without the power to shapeshift, he was as good as maimed. Crippled. Powerless, as he’d been as a newborn.

And, as time passed - days, months, years, centuries - without anybody coming for him, Maui knew he’d been abandoned yet again, or forgotten, despite everything he’d done for humans. After all, what worth did he have to them now that he was powerless? None, that was it. He could do nothing now. He  _ was  _ nothing.

_ Without the hook, I am nothing. _

* * *

“They told him he was  _ what _ ?”

“A waste. Can you lower your voice? I can hear you just fine.”

“Sorry, sorry. I just… why would  _ anybody  _ say something like that to someone else?”

“Giant crabs weren’t known for their social skills or tact, you know. They did have a tendency to say whatever went through their mind, which usually wasn’t a lot. It might have had something to do with their extinction, come to think of it.”

Moana sighed, and turned towards the beach. Pilifeai had gone right back into the ocean, but with the Ponaturi unable to leave the caves during the day they were in no rush to sail away from the island - and Tamatoa in particular seemed to have no intention to move at all. He was sprawled at the shore, looking at his reflection in the water and humming to himself what sounded like a rather depressing tune even from a distance. “He’s taking it really badly, huh?”

“Yeah, worse than I’d have thought. He didn’t even eat the bodies,” Maui muttered. For a moment Moana thought he was trying to make light of the situation, but he looked perfectly serious. She took a mental note to never ask in detail about giant crab habits when it came to dealing with the dead, and turned back to Tamatoa instead. She tried to imagine for a moment what it had to be like - believing to be the last of his species, finding out it wasn’t true, receiving nothing but demeaning comments from his kind and then finding himself the only one left  _ again, _  all in a matter of a few hours. She found she couldn’t: it was just too far from anything she’d ever experienced.

“Maybe you should talk to him?”

Maui’s voice snapped her from her thoughts. “Huh? Me?”

A shrug. “Well, why not? You’re the crab whisperer. Or monster whisperer. Or goddess-turned-destructive-demon whisperer. Whatever you want to call it, you’re better at this kind of thing than I could ever be. I’d probably just say all the wrong things.”

Well, Moana thought, at least on that one point, he wasn’t wrong. She glanced back at Tamatoa, and nodded. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said, and walked up to him slowly. He may very well not want to talk, in which case she’d leave him alone for a while longer, but at least she had to try. The more she approached, the clearer the words Tamatoa was gloomily singing to himself became.

“I'm too shiny, I'm the sunrise on the surface of the sea. Look at me, you see, I'm so shiny…”

“Hey.”

Her voice caused him to trail off and fall silent. He didn’t move at all except for his eyestalks, which turned towards her just slightly. He gave her an apathetic look before resting his chin down on his claws. “... Hey,” he muttered, voice flat. “I take it Maui told you. Must have loved getting his payback.”

“He didn’t mean to get any payback and you know it,” Moana pointed out, sitting on the sand and putting a hand on his claw. “We’re just worried.”

“If you try telling me something your grandma would say, I swear I’m gonna vomit.”

“I won’t. What would  _ yours  _ say?”

Tamatoa’s shell rose and fell in a massive shrug. “That I shouldn’t give a second thought about anything others do or say, probably. That was her answer to everything,” he said flatly.

“Well, then maybe you should listen--”

“Not to  _ you, _  I won’t,” Tamatoa cut her off, sulking. “Let’s be real, this kind of crap is easy for you two to babble about, isn’t it? Taken in by the gods. Chosen by the ocean. I had to go and try to make myself special on my own. No one ever  _ chose _  me.”

Moana shook her head. “That’s not true. Someone did.”

That caused Tamatoa to roll his eyes. “Oh, yes. My mother. Who was an idiot, by the way. Didn’t you get the memo?”

“That’s what they said. And you just  _ believe _  them? What about your grandmother - do you think she was an idiot, too?”

That seemed to hit a nerve, because Tamatoa tensed up. There were a few moments of silence before he scowled, entirely avoiding her question. “Couldn’t those two just stay alive for  _ one  _ more night? If they’d seen me with more treasure, they’d have changed their mind about me.”

If what Pilifeai had told her about giant crabs was anything to go by that was not the case - if anything, it would have probably just made them think he was a complete oddball. But telling him so would do him no good, and she decided against it. “Well, it was their loss, wasn’t it?”

An eyestalk turned back towards her, antennae perking up just a fraction. “Was it?”

Moana rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding?  _ Of course _  it was.”

“They thought I was a waste--”

“Well, they were wrong. Whose judgment would you trust, your grandmother’s, or that of two old hags who didn’t even know you?” she asked, and smiled a bit when his antennae twitched, perking up some more. “Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that grandmothers have this annoying habit of being right most of the time. She and your mother had a choice between the home of their ancestors and giving you a chance, and they chose  _ you. _  They thought you were worth it. I think they had the right idea, and so does Maui. We have  _ seen _  what you can do. Those two back there just had no clue.”

Tamatoa blinked at her a couple of times, as though absorbing the information, then finally lifted his head. “Well,  _ of course _  they had the right idea,” he said haughtily, like he never had a single doubt about it, and Moana mentally patted herself on the back. “It’s just annoying that they didn’t realize it, you know?”

Moana shrugged. “Well, since they were so unpleasant, they didn’t really  _ deserve _  to see all of this, did they?” she added, gesturing towards Tamatoa’s glittering shell. He followed her gaze, and his expression finally broke into a grin.

“Hah! True enough. Why should they  _ get _  to see something so shiny? They probably had no taste, anyway.”

“See, that’s the spirit,” Moana said, and glanced up at Tamatoa’s shell. “So, what’s the story behind these?”

“Huh?”

“Your treasure. You said you know all of it like the back of your claw. Mind to tell me more?”

Tamatoa seemed amused. “Trying to get me to talk about my treasure now?”

“Yep. In song form or not.”

That finally got something out of him that resembled a laugh. “Hah! I’ll have to pass. Not that I wouldn’t love to put my amazing voice to some use, but I don’t improvise, you know - this kind of thing’s got to be rehearsed.”

With a terrible effort not to laugh at the thought of Tamatoa rehearsing his musical number in his lair in case anybody wandered in it, Moana let her gaze shift to his shell again - and it paused on something that seemed to stand out from the rest: a greenstone the same color as the heart of Te Fiti, but carved in a figure-of-eight, serpent-like shape, with a bird’s beak in the upper half. “What is that?”

Tamatoa turned his eyestalks to follow her gaze. “Oh, that? It’s a carving of the Manaia.”

“The Manaia?”

“Yeah, this being who used to be a messenger between the world of the living and that of the dead. They kind of disappeared about a thousand years ago, though. No one knows where they went. Shame, because it looks like we could use their help, since Maui’s plan to get into the Underworld isn’t even a plan. Anyway, that’s a pretty stone, but just a stone. Oh, but that lamp right next to it? That’s another story altogether! So, I was not too far away from Cape Reinga, looking for this shipwreck I’d heard about…”

* * *

Maui had absolutely no clue what Moana had even told him, but by the time they sailed off Tamatoa seemed in good spirits and surprisingly cooperative, hardly even protesting when it was time to shrink him so that he could travel with them by boat. He didn't even ask again to eat the chicken or the pig, though Maui suspected that was mostly due to his snack back in Manawa-Tane: he just lay down at the front of the boat, and seemed to be rather enjoying the breeze and sprays of water.

"I just told him the truth," Moana said with a shrug at the quizzical glance Maui gave him while Tamatoa was out of earshot. "That whatever they said wasn't worth a thought."

As far as Maui could tell, that was a message Tamatoa had been getting for a long time – not least from his grandmother – without it actually getting through his thick head. That Moana had succeeded where everyone else had failed was remarkable, but at that point Maui expected nothing less of her. So he laughed. "And that's why  _ you're _  the crab whisperer," he said, and turned to call out to Tamatoa. "So, the Taniwha! Brings back memories, doesn't it?"

"Yes, and few of them good," Tamatoa muttered, and glanced at Moana. "Maybe she should stay away. They have a thing for human women. Not a good sort of thing," he added. Maui shrugged when Moana's gaze shifted on him.

“They're treacherous bastards. They look kinda like men, kinda like reptiles--"

"It's more three quarter reptile," Tamatoa cut him off. "Scales, tails and all. They have arms, but that's where the resemblance ends. They're even uglier than you humans," he added, only to pause when Moana raised an eyebrow. He frowned for a moment, then blinked.  "Oh, wait! That's  _ not _  a nice thing to say, right?"

... Well, look at that, he was learning. Maui supposed that being on the receiving end of that kind of careless talk had helped. Not that he thought Moana especially cared about judgment on her looks coming from a giant crab, but still. Predictably enough, Moana shrugged and just steered the boat. "It's okay. I'm more concerned about the Taniwha. I am still coming with you," she added, trying down one of the ropes. "But I must know what we're facing first."

"Humanoid reptiles," Maui said, sitting down and grabbing a coconut. He cracked it open easily against his knee, kept one half and handed the other to Tamatoa. "Nasty bastards, a bigger than the Ponaturi. Bigger than most humans, really. As Tamatoa mentioned they're not one of the best things a human woman could meet, so--"

"Spear with me at all times."

"You got it."

Tamatoa bristled. "Won't let them come close enough to make you use it. Right, Maui?"

Truth be told Maui was sort on counting on watching Moana kick some Taniwha butt, because he'd seen what she could do, but she was still one human while they were a demigod with shapeshifting powers and a giant crab monster, so he supposed it would be best to be on the safe side and not let it come to that. "You bet. They live in this island a couple of days of navigation from here, and the currents there are quite bad. They stay near dangerous currents so that they can attack whoever shipwrecks. We'll need to be careful when we approach the island."

"Yeah, and also mind the giant headless warrior guy," Tamatoa said thought a mouthful of coconut. Moana's eyebrows went up to her hairline.

"Giant headless warrior?" she repeated, but this time all Maui could give her was a look of confusion to match her own.

"... I've got nothing," he admitted, and turned to Tamatoa. "What giant headless warrior?"

"What, are you blind or-- oooh, wait! Right, by the time it appeared you were already stuck... wherever you were stuck. It actually got there around you messed everything up," he added, and took another bite from the coconut.

Maui decided to ignore the jab and just focused on the issue at hand. "So, what about this guy?" he asked. Tamatoa chewed and swallowed before replying.

"It's just what it sounds like. A giant headless warrior, with spear and all, guarding the Taniwha's islands and attacking whoever comes close. Ships or otherwise. It just stands up from the bottom of the sea and is made of... stone, or something. I didn't get close enough to get a good look. The Taniwha had nothing I wanted at that point and I didn't need trouble. Oh, also it's headless. Hence why it's the Headless Warrior Guy."

"Original," Maui said drily. "Any idea where it comes from?"

"Nope," Tamatoa replied with a shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine. Word is that the Taniwha have its head, though, and that's why it follows their orders and patrols their coasts."

"So we're gonna have to fight it to get to the island."

Tamatoa shrugged. "Or the human can shrink it," he said, nodding to Moana. "Seems easier."

Maui made a face. "But far less fun."

"Hey, she can turn it to full size after we get my treasure back, and then we can fight it," Tamatoa pointed out, causing Maui to grin. He hadn't thought about it at all.

"That's a very good poin--"

"What if we recover its head instead?" Moana spoke up, causing both of them to turn and glance at her like she'd just grown a second head of her own. She shrugged. "Well, if that is how they control it, it might be worth taking the head as well when we take the treasure, if we find it. If we give it back to its owner, it will have no reason to keep guarding them."

Maui thought about it for a few moments, then grinned and turned to look at Tamatoa. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I think? Because what I'm thinking now are variants on jokes about losing one's head and how I can work them into a song."

"... That, too. But most of all, it could turn against the Taniwha when they lose control over it. I know _  I _  would be pissed if someone made me work as their patrol guy for a thousand years," Maui pointed out, and Tamatoa's expression immediately brightened.

"Oh! That would be fun! Yes, I like your idea, human!"

Moana crossed her arms. "You know, it was more a matter of doing the right thing by freeing it than having it beating the crap out of the Taniwha."

"Well, why not both?"

"What he said. Let's do both."

"But—"

"It's two on one, babe!"

_ "Bwoook!" _

"Three on one," Tamatoa corrected himself with a satisfied look at the latch leading to the hold. Moana sighed, and glanced down at Pua. The pig looked up at her, and then went to stand beside her, looking warily at Tamatoa. The crab huffed and crossed his pincers. "Three on two. We still win. Besides, it's up to the guy what it does once it gets its head back."

"It could attack us again," Maui commented, unable keep a hopeful note out of his voice, and gave a sheepish grin at Moana's raised eyebrow. It was very easy to guess what she was thinking: how he'd almost drowned after the Kakamora gained the upper hand in the fight he'd thrown himself into. "Sorry, can't help it. A fish can't change its scales."

"Unlike me," Tamatoa pointed out. "I can change my shell if I need to."

"That was a figure of speech, Crabby."

A shrug. "I know. Just thought I'd draw attention to my shell, in case-- wait, what are you--”

“Turning you off,” Maui replied, and reached down to scratch the spot between Tamatoa’s eyestalks before the crab could pull away. Just like when Moana had done it, Tamatoa went still after the first scratch, everything about him - eyestalks, antennae, pincers, limbs  - going entirely limp. His protest turned into a few slurred words that sounded a lot like ‘I hate you’ before his eyes fell shut and he just lay down on the floor, snoring lightly. Maui grinned, pulling his hand back. “Have I already said I wish I’d known this trick for a few thousand years ago?”

“Yes. Consider it my thanks for teaching me how to sail,” Moana said, causing him to laugh.

“Hah! A fair trade,” he said, and went to help Moana counterbalance the boat - but not before moving Tamatoa a little more to the centre of it, to make sure he wouldn’t fall into the ocean at a sudden roll of the boat.

* * *

When they came within sight of the small group of islands the Taniwha lived in, a storm was brewing to the west. Moana estimated that it would be on them within the hour, and Maui's conclusion was precisely the same: going straight for the Taniwha would be a seriously bad idea, because it could result in getting stuck on the island until the storm had passed, or worse yet being locked in a fight with a giant headless warrior when it came. It would be best to stop somewhere else, wait for the storm to be over with, and then move again.

"How about there?" Moana asked, gesturing to their left. There was a tiny island some distance away from the others, showing no sign of being inhabited. It was very small and far from ideal, but there seemed to be a cave and it would make a decent place to stay dry and keep the boat ashore during the storm.

Maui nodded. "It looks good to me," he conceded. "The Taniwha live on the southern side of their island anyway, unless something has changed. They're unlikely to see us staying there. Heard that, Crabcake?" he added, turning back.

Tamatoa had demanded Moana to turn him back his usual size as soon as they were close enough to the islands. The sea was shallow enough for him to talk with most of his upper body above the water, and he'd claimed he wanted to stretch his legs – though Moana suspected he wanted to take a look at the bottom of the ocean to see if he could find any stray piece of treasure. So far, he seemed to be having no luck.

"Yes, yes, you'll be on the island," he muttered with a shrug. "I'll get there later. I'll take a look around meanwhile."

"Don't get too close to the main island," Maui reminded him. “Last thing we need is having to fight this giant headless warrior in the middle of a storm."

"Hah! Don't worry. Even if I stumbled into it, I'm sure I could handle-- HEY!"

His last words were covered by his own cry, by the huge splash as he was suddenly dragged underwater, by the loud groan of stone sliding against stone. The sudden wave caused by his fall caused the boat to rock violently, and Moana could barely manage to keep it straight, one arm shooting out to grab Pua before he could fall into the sea. Something emerged from the bottom of the ocean, something huge that had been lying in wait until someone – Tamatoa – had stepped close enough to be grabbed.

Above them stood what looked like a gigantic headless statue, twice as tall as Tamatoa - except that it wasn’t just a statue, on account of the fact it was moving. It had thrown Tamatoa entirely off-balance, and all Moana could see of the crab in the churning water were legs uselessly kicking up in the air, the rest of him upside down and submerged. The headless warrior stood before him,  _ on _  him, one foot on his abdomen to keep him down; it did not even flinch when one of Tamatoa's claws closed on its leg, the stone not even scratched. It just lifted a huge, long spear high above his head, tip gleaming in the sunlight, ready to bring it down on his trapped foe.

"Maui!" she cried out over Pua’s terrified squeals, struggling to keep the boat from capsizing, unable to let go of the ropes long enough to even use her bracelet. But she didn’t need to: Maui had seen everything as well, and he wouldn't just stand by to watch.

"You get the boat away from here!" he called out, and leaped. It was an impressive leap, something that almost looked like flying, and with a cry he brought his hook down against the stone spear. It was a terrible blow, the kind that could shatter mountain peaks, but the spear didn't shatter. Still, the blow had been enough: it was knocked aside, and the huge being holding it was thrown off- balance.

With a groan of stone grinding on stone, the headless warrior took several steps back not to fall – which in turn gave Tamatoa enough time to get up. For a moment Moana feared he'd be unable to, that he'd stay stuck on his back and vulnerable, but being in the water seemed to help. Within instants Tamatoa was back upright, claws raised and looking extremely displeased to say the very least.

"You could handle it, huh?" Maui called out, half laughing, a moment before turning into a hawk in mid-air and attacking the headless warrior again. The being was forced to step back again, and raise the spear in defense.

"Hey, you were beaten by the Kakamora!" Tamatoa protested, causing Maui to laugh again.

"Then we're even! C'mon, help me out! You woke it up, help me put it back to sleep!"

"Oh. Right! Coming!"

They both were on the headless guardian a moment later, but Moana didn’t get to see much of the fight: she focused entirely on getting as far away as possible, to the small island they had spotted earlier. It was a struggle, the fight raising waves that threatened to overturn her boat, but she managed to finally get far enough to keep it steady, and turned to look.

Back in the Vault, when they had fought together against the demon she’d accidentally turned into a giant, the battle had been rather spectacular but also rather short: they had gained the upper hand right away. But now Moana could tell that things were different, the huge headless warrior holding its own, easily matching Maui’s blows and seemingly unaffected by Tamatoa’s claws. It didn’t seem to be gaining the upper hand, either, but it wasn’t giving an inch and the storm was approaching quickly.

_ Well guys, you had your fun. Got to end it now. _

Moana lifted her hand, the one with the bracelet, and pointed it towards the giant. “Iti haere!” she cried out.

Nothing happened.

“... Huh?” Moana blinked, looking down at the bracelet. Why hadn’t it worked? Had she pointed wrong? No, she was sure her fingers was pointed straight at--

A painfully loud screech snapped her form her thoughts, causing her to look up again. Maui had shifted into his hawk form and was flying up and up towards the sun, away from the headless warrior and from… wait, where  _ was _  Tamatoa?

The stone guardian seemed to be wondering precisely the same thing, for it stopped trying to strike Maui with his spear - how could it even see him without a head? - and tried to turn, spear raised. Moana could barely see something, a golden gleam right below the water, and she guessed Tamatoa had burrowed in the bottom of the ocean just one moment before Maui shrieked again, and  _ struck. _

He fell from the sky like an arrow, sunlight turning his feathers golden, almost too fast for Moana’s eye to follow… and definitely too fast for his foe to brace itself, or lift its weapon. Maui turned back at the very last instant, and struck the giant on its barnacle-encrusted chest with his hook, and all of his might.

It was not enough to injure the warrior, but it was enough to knock it back. It tried to keep standing, to step back and regain its footing, but it immediately tripped on something right behind it - something that rose up from underwater the next moment, knocking it entirely off its feet and into the churning sea.

Tamatoa.

“HAH! How do  _ you _  like that?” the giant crab called out, but he didn’t stay to gloat: instead he moved quickly away from the stone being as it thrashed in the attempt to get up. “Don’t stand there, babe - got to get to the island!”

“But Maui--”

“He’s gonna keep it busy. C’mon, before it sees where we’re going!”

Moana did as she was told, not without first glancing back to see Maui, once again in his hawk form, was flying right above his struggling enemy. She could have sworn the hawk had winked at her the moment before turning into a whale and fall crashing down on the headless warrior, lifting up a wall of ocean water.

* * *

“Are you  _ sure _  it didn’t see you getting here?”

“I told you, I turned into a fish and just swam here. It was still trying to get up after the whale treatment, anyway. And besides, it would already be here if it knew.”

“Maybe we got far enough for it to lose interest altogether.”

“Here’s hoping. We really don’t need to be fighting the guy out there with this storm going on.”

“I still think the fire was a bad idea. What if Headless Guy sees it?”

“It can’t see anything without a head or eyes, Crabby. It felt our presence somehow, and it could fight, but I really doubt it can see anything the way we do. Besides,  _ some _  of us need to keep warm.”

“Right, right,” Tamatoa muttered, settling down in the back of the cave. It had turned out to be surprisingly large, enough for him to stand in and take a few steps. It was a bit of a tight fit, especially with Maui, the human and her pets huddled in front of the fire, but it would do. Sure, he didn’t  _ need _  to be there - he could as well take shelter from the storm underwater - but he’d prefer to stick with them, for time being. He stayed still, listening to the wind picking up outside, the crashing waves and pounding rain. In the distance, there was thunder. “Do you think the storm is going to last for long?”

“Naah, it will be gone by the morning. Let’s just wait here.”

“I thought the Ocean was your buddy, human. Can’t it just stop the storm? Oh, or take down Headless Guy for us?”

“That’s… not how it works.”

“Some jerk you’ve got as a friend, then.”

“Relax, Crabcake. We won’t need the Ocean’s help to kick its butt.”

The human frowned slightly. “Are you sure there is no way to avoid it? It seemed to be giving you a lot of trouble,” she added, and glanced down at the bracelet on her wrist. “I wonder why it didn’t work…”

Maui shrugged. “You probably didn’t point it straight at it. It was moving, the boat was rocking… easy to get the aim wrong,” he said, and put another log in the fire. “You’ll get to try again tomorrow, at any rate. And if it doesn’t work, then Crabcake and I will just try harder to get it out of the way.”

Truth be told, Tamatoa wasn’t sure he could try beating it any harder than he already had: he’d given his best in the earlier fight and, even with Maui fighting alongside him, they had barely managed to incapacitate that thing for enough time to get away before the storm began. If the fight had carried on… he wasn’t as confident as Maui on the outcome.

“Or we could move on to look for the treasure elsewhere,” he suggested, and shifted a bit when Maui and Moana looked at him, exchanged a glance and then turned right back at him. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m scared or anything--”

“Of course not,” Maui said, just a bit too flatly.

“... But we could look elsewhere first to find the rest of the treasure?”

Maui shook his head. “I’d rather check the Taniwha’s island while we’re here. We don’t have many other leads at the moment. None at all, really. They were seen trading with Lalotai monsters at the Vault, so they could be the ones who have the hairpin.”

_ Oh. The hairpin. _

“Right,” Tamatoa found himself saying. Truth be told, he’d completely forgotten about that stupid hairpin, and back at in Manawa-Tane… hey, wait a moment... ! “Hey, you didn’t bring it up at all in Manawa-Tane!” Tamatoa pointed out. “Didn’t even ask about it!”

Maui shrugged. “I looked and there was nothing that looked like a hairpin in the bunch. No real point in asking when I already knew the answer.”

_ Because it wasn’t there,  _ Tamatoa thought. _  The Ponaturi didn’t have it. The Taniwha don’t have it. I do. _

There was a pang of something in his chest, and he couldn’t really define it, but it was enough to make him turn back to his missing leg. The hairpin was there, hidden in a tiny gap between his carapace and what was left of the limb. It had been there all along - the thing Maui wanted the most, the thing the human had risked her life to help him get. The only bargaining chip he had to get them to help getting his treasure back.

Tamatoa’s eyes shifted back to Maui and the human, who were now trying to stifle laughter while they watched the chicken try to swallow a stone. Maybe, he reasoned, he didn’t need to keep holding onto it anymore. It was an ugly old thing anyway, and… and they would help him get the rest of his treasure even if he handed it over, wouldn’t they? They wouldn’t have at the start, so he had been  _ right  _ in keeping it, but now maybe they’d help him regardless. No, of course they would. The human  _ definitely _  would.

With their attention elsewhere, Tamatoa reached with one claw to pull the hairpin out of its hiding place.  _ I just realized it was among the Ponaturi’s stuff, _  he would say. They would believe him, because of course they would - they trusted him, didn’t they? - and then they--

The crack of thunder boomed through the sky, shaking the earth itself, and that it was all it took. With a startled gasp, Tamatoa flinched... and lost his grip on the hairpin. It fell on the ground and, before he could even think of trying to catch it, it half-bounced, half-rolled across the stone floor - coming to rest in plain sight, a scant inch away from Maui’s foot.

* * *

“And so I was thinking, if the chicken came first-- huh?”

It was a weak gleam of burnished gold in firelight that caught Maui’s eye. When he trailed off and looked down, he wasn’t too surprised to see something shiny next to him: of course, at some point, some of the shinies on Tamatoa’s shell would fall off. He still wasn’t entirely sure how the crab made them stick to his shell; it had never occurred him to ask.

And right there and then, it didn’t occur to him that there could be anything special about that tiny object. He didn’t even pay much attention to it: he just picked it up and called out. “Hey, careful there. No point in picking up all of your stuff if you start losing it piece by--”

“THAT’S NOT MINE!” Tamatoa blurted out, causing him to trail off. Maui blinked, glancing back at him. He was staring at him with the wide-eyed look of a cornered animal, and that confused him even more.

Had he not panicked, Maui would have just handed it back to him without a second look. But he  _ did  _ panic, and that changed everything.

“What are you talking about? It’s got to be yours. Didn’t it just fall off?”

Tamatoa worked his jaw for a moment, then he grinned - the most forced grin Maui had ever seen on his face. What was up with him all of a sudden? “YES! I mean-- yes, of course it’s mine! Haha! Just, uh, got confused for a moment. Just hand it over and--”

_ “Wait.” _

It was just one word, but it was spoken like an order. It caused Maui to still and Tamatoa to cringe, letting out a small strangled noise when Moana gently took the trinket from Maui’s hand. She held it up in the light of the fire, causing Maui to really pay attention to it for the first time. That was when he finally realized it wasn’t  _ just _  a trinket. It was a hairpin - very old, very brittle, and not one he’d seen before. But he was sure he’d checked every single one--

_ Wait. Wait just a moment. _

Maui tore his gaze away from the hairpin to look at Tamatoa, who seemed to be trying his best to shrink under his gaze. Realization dawned on him just as Moana spoke slowly, with the voice of someone who’s hoping against hope to be proven wrong but already knows it won’t be the case.

“... This is it, isn’t it?” she asked, looking up at Tamatoa. Her voice was barely audible through the sounds of the storm and, in the flickering light of the flames, hurt seemed etched in her every feature. Maui could only watch, feeling as though he’d been encased in ice. “How long have you had it?”

Tamatoa blinked quickly, and his eyes darted to the cave’s entrance as though he was trying to figure out if he could make a run for it. He could lie, deny that was the hairpin they were looking for, Maui knew; he could say he had just found it. But what would be the point? His reaction had already told them, loud and clear, all they needed to know.

“I… not long, honest! I… just since… I was gonna tell you, I…huh. Hey, what’s with the leaking? Human...?”

Moana stared back at him in silence, the hairpin in her hand and tears running down her face - the very picture of betrayal. That, more than the revelation itself, was what caused the ice encasing Maui’s mind to shatter. The cold dread and incredulity replaced by wonderfully familiar fury, he grabbed his hook and stood.

_ She trusted you. We trusted you. How could I make the same mistake again? How could I let her make it? _

“YOU LIED!” Maui roared, stepping forward, the fishhook held right in his hand. “You had it all along!”

Tamatoa winced, but he tried to snap back. “You would have just taken it if I told you! You know you would have! I had already lost enough--”

“You  _ stole it  _ from my mother!”

“Maui?” Moana called out, standing up and trying to get in the way, but Maui didn’t hear her, hardly saw her. He moved her aside with a swipe of his arm, eyes fixed on Tamatoa - who, on the other hand, was quickly running out of room to retreat: the next instant, his rear was pressed against the wall of the cave. Huge claws were lifted up, but it was obvious that he knew perfectly how few chances he had to take on that fight and win. Of course he knew. They had been there before, and Maui had taken his leg.

Now maybe he’d take his head.

“Look, it was  _ your  _ fault that I lost my--- Wait, wait, can we just-- I would have told you--” Tamatoa blabbered, panic clearly starting to sink in. “Human? Human, say something!”

“Maui, please--” she tried, but Maui was beyond hearing her. He could feel blood rushing in his ears, anger thudding into his skull. All that time, he could have simply gone to Cape Reinga and summoned his mother. His family. He could have talked to them, and instead…!

“All this time, you  _ lied _  to us!”

“No! I mean, I guess there was a tiny bit of omission there--”

“I saved your life, and YOU MADE US RISK OUR OWN JUST TO GET SOME GOLD BACK!” he screamed, and lifted his hook, ready to land a blow, all of his strength behind it. He would shatter his shell, he would obliterate that lying, slimy bast--

“I HAD NO CHOICE!” Tamatoa shrieked, claws reaching up to cover his head and eyes squeezing shut. “You don’t get it! I  _ had  _ to get my treasure back! I  _ can’t  _ be without it!”

_ Without the hook, I am nothing! _

Maui’s fishhook froze in mid-air. He was aware, dimly, of the sounds of the storm outside; of Moana’s voice calling his name, of the weight of her hand on his back. But it all seemed so very distant, and even his anger was now beyond his reach. All of a sudden, Maui just felt  _ tired. _  He drew in a long breath and lowered his fishhook, slowly. He turned, and held out a hand; Moana put the hairpin on it without another word.

Behind him, Tamatoa let one eye peer out from beneath a raised claw. “So, uh… we’re cool, right? You have the hairpin and look, I even polished-- hey, wait, WAIT!” he protested, flinching back. There was simply no way Moana’s wooden oar striking him could possibly hurt him, but he still yelped when she let out a cry and struck him. “What’s gotten into--?”

“WHY?” Moana cut him off, lifting the oar again. She was scowling, but even so tears were still running down her face. “Why did you do it?”

“I told you, I needed you to help me find my treasure and--”

“We would have helped you regardless!”

“I know! I mean, no-- I  _ didn’t _  know! As in, I know now, but I didn’t  _ before, _  you see?” Tamatoa babbled. “Look, can you… can you stop leaking? No harm’s done, babe, you have the hairpin and-- hey! C’mon!” he protested when Moana let out another cry and struck him again and again with the oar.

“I. Can’t.  _ Believe _  you!” she snapped, each word followed by a blow. “I thought you were-- uuugh!” The oar fell with a clatter, and Moana reached to wipe her face with both hands. “I was such an idiot,” she growled, causing Tamatoa to blink down at her in clear confusion.

“No you’re not! I told you you’re the smart o--”

“I don’t  _ care _  what you said,” she cut him off. Her voice shook for a moment, and the turned away, arms wrapped around herself as though she was cold. “I should have seen this coming. I was wrong about you. I’m done believing a single  _ word _  you say.”

“C’mon, don’t be like that! I was just about to give you the hairpin!”

A scoff. “Oh,  _ sure _  you were,” she muttered, refusing to turn.

“Honest! Look, I could have destroyed it--”

“So we’re supposed to  _ thank _  you now?”

“No! I mean, that would be nice, but you don’t have to. It was a misunderstanding, all right?”

No answer.

“Hello? Did you hear-- Oh, I see, you’re pretending not to hear me! Very mature! Maui, you tell her she’s overreac--”

_ “Enough.” _

One word from Maui was enough to make Tamatoa suddenly fall silent and flinch back, as though reminded that Maui had just as many reasons as her, if not more, to be furious. And he was furious all right - just a cold sort of anger he was unfamiliar with, mixed with something else entirely that wasn’t too far away from sadness.

“If you know what’s good for you,” Maui said, his voice tight, “if you don’t want to lose yet  _ another  _ limb, you will leave now.”

“But--”

“I said  _ now, _  bottom-feeder,” Maui snapped, causing Tamatoa to fall silent and his lost expression to turn into a scowl. “You know where the rest of your treasure is. That’s all you care about, isn’t it? So go get it. Or leave it where it is, return to Lalotai - I don’t  _ care _  what you do. But whatever your next step is, you do it alone. Our ways part now. We’re going where we should have headed from the start.”

Tamatoa’s scowl deepened. “So what now, you go to Cape Reinga with that ugly hairpin and drag the human with you?”

“I’m dragging her nowhere. She can choose whether to come or go home. ”

“You know she’ll come with you, so much for being smart! You’re going to get yourselves killed - great way to get into the Underworld,” Tamatoa snapped, taking a step forward. “There is no way you can get past Hine-nui-te-pō, and you know it! You tried and failed, and she’ll  _ kill you _  this time!”

“That is none of your concern,” Maui said sharply. “Or am I supposed to believe you care about what happens to us, after what  _ you _  made us go through needlessly?”

That hit a nerve, causing Tamatoa to flinch back. “I… well, I…” he babbled, only to fall silent when Maui lifted his hook to point towards the cave’s entrance, where the storm raged.

_ “Leave.” _

For a moment, Tamatoa didn’t say a word: he just kept still, eyes shifting from Maui to Moana. She was sitting now, still giving him her back, her pet pig in her arms. “Moana?” he tried again, his voice oddly small. She tensed, but didn’t or turn or answer, and Tamatoa turned back to Maui. Finally, he set his jaw and scowled.

“Fine. Get yourselves killed and see if I care,” he snapped, lifting a pincer to point it at them. “I’ll get my treasure back and throw a party in Lalotai and  _ you _  won’t be invited because you’ll both be dead!” he added, and finally stomped out of the cave, narrowly avoiding to step on Maui in the process. Maui turned away with, saying nothing.

Neither him nor Moana turned to watch him leave, and they both missed his hesitation, the way he turned back to look at them for just one moment before he scowled again and marched out, alone, into the storm.


	14. Lost and Found

“Stop looking at me like that. I  _ can’t _ go back and you know it.”

Mini Maui’s glare became, if possible, even more accusing. Arms crossed over his chest, he began tapping a tiny foot, clearly waiting for an answer that wasn’t too long in coming. 

“I told you to stop it! I tried, all right? I tried and look what happened!” Maui shouted, holding up his fishhook. He didn’t look at it himself, because it plainly hurt to see it like that - cracked and damaged in a way that it had never been damaged before. One more blow like that first one and it would shatter, leaving him once again powerless, like he’d been for the previous thousand years. He couldn’t let it happen. He wouldn’t let it happen.

_ Without the hook, I’m nothing. _

“Besides, she will be fine,” Maui spoke up again, leaning against a coconut tree. His gaze wandered to the horizon for a moment, to the distant shape of Te Fiti’s island, but he immediately looked away. “She’s not stupid, okay? She’ll realize she can’t do it and she’ll go home. It was nice believing she could fix it all, but nope. The Ocean is crazy and should have never given this task to a mortal or… or anybody else.”

Mini Maui kept glaring. 

“She learned how to sail so hey, that’s a plus, isn’t it? She can teach her people how to be voyagers again. Yay for her. They can look for new islands before theirs dies out. Sure, the darkness is kind of going to be behind them, but they can outrun it and… it’s going to stop at  _ some _ point.”

Mini Maui’s folded arms fell by his sides in an obvious gesture of frustration. He couldn’t talk, but of course Maui could guess precisely what he was thinking. He knew because, deep down, it was what he knew to be real. 

_ She won’t give up and you know it. She’ll fix the mess you made or die trying - not because she thinks she’s special, but because someone has to. And if she fails, the darkness keeps spreading. Humans will stand no chance. Weren’t you their hero? _

“They left me to  _ rot _ on an island!” Maui snapped, causing Mini Maui to rear back towards his shoulder. “I did everything I could for humans,  _ everything, _ and the moment I was of no use they just discarded me like I was nothing!”

_ They didn’t know how to find you. _

Except that Moana had found him, eventually. Grabbed him by the ear, and dragged him across the horizon to return the heart of Te Fiti… plus a detour in Lalotai that hadn’t gone precisely as expected.

_ And she plucked you out of trouble. Risked her own skin to save you. She’s going to to the same for her people, and here you are sulking.  _

“Oh, shut up!” Maui growled, though of course Mini Maui had said absolutely nothing. “Another blow like that and the hook shatters. And if it does, no more powers! And without powers, I’m--”

_ Wasn’t saving humans your thing, once? What are your powers even for now? What are  _ you _ even for? _

The thought was sudden, and cut as deep as a blade. Maui’s grip on the hook’s handle tightened before slackening again, and he heaved out a long sigh, turning back towards the distant blackness that was Te Fiti’s island. 

_ Maybe the gods found you for a reason,  _ Moana’s voice rang somewhere in the back of his mind.  _ Maybe the ocean brought you to them because it saw someone who was worthy of being saved. But the gods aren’t the ones who make you Maui. You are. _

“That damn kid,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. Who was he kidding? Of course Moana wasn’t going back. Of course she was still there, and would try again. 

And maybe she could even do it, after all. But not on her own. No one could take on Te Ka on their own, and perhaps it was already too late - maybe she’d already tried and failed, and paid with her life. 

The mere thought felt like a punch to the gut, and Maui refused to even acknowledge the possibility. He looked down at the blackened crack in his hook for a few more moments before letting out a long breath and standing up. He glanced down at his chest, where Mini Maui was looking back at him expectantly. “... Well, buddy. We may as well go out with a bang, don’t you think?”

The tiny effigy on his skin grinned broadly and raised both thumbs. 

_ Let’s do this. _

* * *

_ Don’t do it. Maui will smite you on sight. Just go your way and don’t look back. _

Trying his best to ignore the Voice of Reason in the back of his mind - which always sounded an annoying lot like his Gran - Tamatoa took a few steps closer to the shore before letting his eyes peer up above the surface, blinking away ocean water as he took a look at the island where they had found refuge the previous day, before the two of them got so damn  _ prickly _ about that ugly hairpin. Afterwards, Tamatoa had to spend the night at the bottom of the sea. He hadn’t gotten a minute of sleep, either, with the waves crashing and rolling above him and the human’s words echoing in his mind. 

_ I was wrong about you. _

But she was wrong. As in, she wasn’t wrong. She was wrong in thinking she was wrong: she was right about him. Well, she had been right before. Now that she thought she’d been wrong, she was wrong. 

… His head was starting to hurt. 

Tamatoa chased away the thought, and focused on the island instead. He had a small speech sort of prepared - an explanation of sorts that may or may not include a half-apology in song form - but he knew he wouldn’t get to use it when he lay his eyes on the small beach before the cave’s entrance, where Moana had left her boat before they got into the cave. 

It wasn’t there anymore: in the bright sunlight in the wake of the storm, all he could see in the sand were footprints, and the kind of tracks a boat would leave when pushed back into the sea. And if the boat was gone so were they; they must have left as soon as the storm ended.

Tamatoa walked slowly on the beach, peered into the cave; of course it was empty, with only the charred remains of the fire left behind. That, and him - he had been left behind, too. And to think he’d been about to give that stupid hairpin back! He had tried to do the  _ right _ thing, and look what had happened!

_ All right, lesson learned: never try to do the right thing.  _

With a groan, Tamatoa let himself lean down on the sand, squinting against the sunlight to carefully scan the horizon. Maybe they were still nearby, or not so far he couldn’t see their boat. And if he spotted them, he’d… he...

_ You’d what? Go after them and grovel? When was it you ate your dignity? _

The thought made Tamatoa scowl. Come to think of it, why would he need to apologize? And why on Earth would he want to go with them? A good chunk of his treasure was right there, only a short distance away, while those two were sailing to their death. He definitely wasn’t going to join them on that hopeless trip, so good riddance. They would have parted ways eventually either way, so--

“Well, I’ll be. You really  _ are _ a jerk. And to think you almost had me fooled for a moment.”

_ Oh, no. Not this guy again.  _

“Go away,” Tamatoa grumbled, screwing his eyes shut and covering his head with both claws. Maybe, if he ignored him hard enough, he’d just leave. 

“Or else what? You’ll sing about yourself until I flee?”

“Shut up.”

A scoff. “You know what, fine. I’ll let actions do the talking.”

“Wha-- HEY!” Tamatoa let out a yelp when something smacked against his side, not hard enough to hurt through his shell but definitely hard enough to almost knock him over. He scrambled to get up, holding up his pincers, and let out another yelp when a huge tail covered in blood-red scales and spikes hit him like a whip across his back, causing some of his shinies to become dislodged and splash into the sea. “Stop that!” he shouted, snapping his claws. “Do that again and I’ll snip off your ta-- OW!”

“It  _ grows back, _ you idiotic crustacean!” Pilifeai shot back, knocking Tamatoa’s legs from beneath him with another swipe of his massive tail.

“Stop it! Seriously, what’s that about?” Tamatoa protested, scrambling to get up again. That caused Pilifeai to still, tail raised. He stared for a few moments, until Tamatoa shifted slightly, claws still lifted. “... All right, so  _ maybe _ I can guess what it is about--”

“Thank Tagaloa, he grew a brain,” Pilifeai muttered. “I can’t  _ believe _ you had it all along!”

“Of course I had a brain all alon--”

“Oh gods, I take that back,” the giant lizard groaned, rolling his eyes. “I’m talking about the  _ hairpin, _ idiot.”

“Look, I was gonna give it-- wait, you were listening?”

“Of course I was listening. To the fight  _ and _ to everything Maui and the human were saying about you before setting sail.”

“You’ve got issues, man. That’s not nor-- wait, what  _ were _ they saying?”

The giant lizard grinned, baring huge sharp fangs. “Nothing nice about you. Want to know the details?”

It wasn’t an unexpected answer, but it stung all the same.  _ “No.” _

“All right, all right. I guess you can imagine it just fine. For the record, they really didn’t see that coming. The human especially. Gods, wasn’t she hurt - how does  _ that  _ make you feel?” 

Tamatoa looked away, saying nothing, and Pilifeai kept going. “But I suppose you shouldn’t feel too guilty. You just did what’s in your nature, didn’t you? They have no one to blame but themselves. Rule number one, never trust a Lalotai bottom-feeder.”

“Don’t call me--” Tamatoa tried, but Pilifeai went on, giving no sign of having even heard him.

“Serves them right for thinking you were any better than that. What a waste of their time.”

_ All that mess for you to be the last one left? Talk about a waste. _

_ I should have seen this coming. I was wrong about you. _

_ I trusted you and forgot what you are. A monster. I was wrong thinking you were any different.  _

_ What a waste of their time. _

Somehow, that stung in a way the blows hadn’t. Not knowing what to say, not wanting to think, Tamatoa turned to the one safe option he had at the moment: anger. He snapped his claws, glaring at Pilifeai. “Don’t push it,” he snarled. As a response, Pilifeai snorted.

“I am stating a fact. You proved me right, and them wrong. No amount of shiny crap will change what you are, and you know it. Even  _ you _ don’t like yourself all that much without a ton of useless junk on your shell. Or do you?”

“I… well...”

_ Of course I do, _ Tamatoa wanted to say, but words stayed in his throat, like stuck fish bones. “It’s not junk,” he finally said. His voice sounded weak even to him. Pilifeai snorted and began circling him, forcing Tamatoa to spin so he could keep his claws between them.

“Name  _ one thing _ you like about yourself, minus the shinies. Come on. I’m waiting.”

_ You’re going to look like someone who took on a ship full of Kakamora and won. And I think that’s rather amazing. _

_ They thought you were worth it. I think they had the right idea, and so does Maui. We have  _ seen  _ what you can do.  _

“I--”

_ I was wrong about you. _

“Oh, no answer? Color me unsurprised. So much big talk, but once you take that shiny armor of yours out of the picture, there’s only the ugly tru--”

“SHUT UP!” 

The shout, and the sudden clack of pincers  _ very  _ close to his face, finally made Pilifeai break his composure. He yelped in a rather undignified way and backed off several steps, until he was halfway into the ocean. Tamatoa took another step, claws raised and ready to maim and kill if he tried to approach again. 

“You know absolutely nothing,” he snapped. “I’ve got treasure to recover and no time to deal with you, so back off. Or follow those two idiots - they’ll get themselves killed and it’s not everyday you get to watch the Goddess of Death doing the job herself. Maybe you’ll catch up on time to enjoy the show if you leave now.”

A scoff. “And you’re telling me you’re perfectly fine with that?”

No, part of him wanted to say, but he refused to. In the end, he shrugged. “We parted ways. What they do now is none of my business. Nor is what  _ you _ do. So go watch them die, go back crawling in Lalotai, I don’t care. But get out of my way or I’ll snip off your forked tongue the moment you speak again.”

Pilifeai scowled and opened his mouth. Tamatoa snapped both claws. Pilifeai closed his mouth and, slowly, walked backwards into the ocean, until he was gone from sight. Maybe he wasn’t really gone, maybe he’d just stay hidden from sight and hang around there, but as long as he didn’t have to see him or listen to him, Tamatoa didn’t care.

With a scoff, he lowered his claws and turned away from the spot where Pilifeai had disappeared to look at the outline of the group of islands where the Taniwha lived - namely, on the biggest one. That was where they kept their valuables, so it had to be where part of his treasure was. He just needed to go and take it back; he would feel better once he did, he was sure of it.

_ I just need my treasure back.  _

Tamatoa’s eyes scanned the stretch of sea between him and the island. The ocean was calm once again now that the storm was over, but now he knew there was something a lot more dangerous hidden underwater. The headless guy had turned out to be tough; he would have to either avoid it or take on it on his own, and this time he wasn’t at all sure he would win that fight.

But the only other option was walking away without treasure, and that wasn’t an option at all.

* * *

From the moment he had begun that journey, Maui had tried to imagine what having that hairpin - his  _ mother’s _ hairpin, unless his assumptions had been all wrong from the start - in his hands would feel like.

Of course the doubt that he never would have it,  _ never _ find it, was always there in his mind and impossible to shake off. How could he? It was such a tiny thing, so old, so brittle. He was not an idiot and he could tell from the beginning that his chances of finding it, even while following the trail of Tamatoa’s stolen treasure, were slim. The last thing left of his mother, the last link that could bring to some kind of closure, could be forever beyond his reach.

And yet there it was, a small thing of burnished gold and gemstones that had lost all of their shine, right there in the palm of his hand. By all accounts, he should be feeling triumphant. Except that, of course, he couldn’t.

_ You had it all along! All this time, you lied to us! _

_ There is no way you can get past Hine-nui-te-pō, and you know it! You tried and failed, and she’ll kill you this time! _

_ Get yourselves killed and see if I care! _

“... Hey.” Moana’s voice caused Maui to wince and look up from the hairpin cupped in the palm of his hand. He’d probably been lost in thought for a bit longer than he’d thought he had, if the worried expression on her face - and that of her pig, to boot- was anything to go by. He made an effort to grin, still sitting against the mast. “Hey,” he said. “Just trying to come up with something to say. ‘Hey ma, guess who?’ may not go down too well. What if she has a heart attack? Can the dead have a heart attack?”

That caused her to smile a bit. “I’m sure you will do fine. Just try not to introduce yourself with a song about your deeds.”

“Heh. Didn’t really impress you with that, huh?”

“It was pretty good, actually. Except the part where you sealed me in a cave.”

“Oh. That. No one’s perfect,” he muttered, putting the hairpin back in his hair. Moana let out something remarkably similar to a laugh before she checked the wind’s direction, and adjusted the sails accordingly. She then tied down a rope to keep everything as it should and sat down as well next to him, a hand still on the rudder. 

“I’m sure you’ll say the right thing when it’s time.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“... Well. Almost sure,” she corrected herself, causing him to laugh. 

“Hah! If you say so, I believe it. You’re the best judge of character I know.”

It was the wrong thing to say, and Maui realized it - as usual - just a moment after it left his mouth, because Moana’s chuckle was cut short and she turned away, gaze darkening. She didn’t need to speak for Maui to guess exactly what she was thinking. Mentally kicking himself - he’d been doing that a lot, lately - he spoke again quickly. “That wasn’t your fault, you know. He lied. You just trusted--”

“And I shouldn’t have,” Moana cut him off, her voice bitter. She reached to scratch Pua behind the ears, and the pig leaned his chin on her leg, looking up at her with saddened eyes. “I was an idiot.”

Maui shook his head. “Nah, you were just way too kind. If anyone here is an idiot, that’s me. You’re not the only one who fell for it, you know. It kinda felt like the good old days, for a time. I liked that. I’d missed it,” he added, only realizing the truth of each word now that they left him. “I’ve known him for much longer, been burned before, and yet I forgot I had already seen what’s beneath the act. Fool me once and all that. I should have really known better. Monster are monsters. They can’t shed their skin.”

“I am actually pretty he mentioned he can molt,” Moana pointed out, a ghost of a smile on her face, and Maui snickered almost despite himself.

“All right, all right. You know what I mean. Bottom line is, I’m the idiot here,” Maui said, but he paused and glanced back, where the Taniwha’s islands had long since disappeared from sight. “Actually, you know what? Scratch that. The only real idiot is him.”

Moana gave a bitter smile. “Is he really? He got what he wanted out of us.”

“Yeah, and he can keep it. He’ll always just be a slimy bottom-feeder with plenty of glittering crap and nothing beneath it,” Maui muttered, and turned to fully face Moana. “Look, you were the first one to  _ really _ think he could be any better than that in centuries, or even thousands of years. Maybe since ever - probably more than even  _ I _ did back in the day. That’s worth a lot more than any treasure, but he couldn’t see it and he blew it. If that doesn’t make him an idiot, I don’t know what does. You just tried to see the best of--”

Moana moved faster than he thought she could, and her arms were around his neck the next instant, very nearly knocking them both into the ocean. Maui laughed. “Hey, careful there. Warn me next time you do it,” he said, but them smile was already dying on his lips when he reached to hug her back. His gaze fell on stretch of water behind them.

_ So what now, you go to Cape Reinga with that ugly hairpin and drag the human with you? _

_ You know she’ll come with you, so much for being smart! You’re going to get yourselves killed - great way to get into the Underworld! _

Maui sighed and pulled back, both hands on Moana’s shoulders. If that bottom-feeder had ever been right on anything at all, that was it. The feat that awaited him was dangerous to the point it bordered on suicidal - no, it passed that border by a long shot - and it wouldn’t be fair to expect her to follow him. She’s already come too far. Returning the heart of Te Fiti had been something entirely different, something that had to be done for everybody’s sake. It had been worth risking both of their lives. But this? This was entirely about him. There was no benefit to be had for anybody else, so no one’s neck should be on the line but his own. 

“I think you should go home now.”

Moana blinked up at him, clearly taken aback. “What?”

“Turn the boat and go home. You know the way. You’ve got a new island and your people to go back to. I can fly the rest of the way.”

The confusion turned into something that wasn’t quite incredulity, but was inching towards it. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I am serious. This is dangerous and--”

“So was returning the heart to Te Fiti, and we did it together!”

“This is different, all right? No one  _ chose _ you to do it.”

“That’s right.  _ I _ choose to do it!”

“Look, this whole thing is all about me and I should do it on my own.”

“But without help, you could die!”

“I’ll take that over having to tell your family that  _ you  _ died because I wanted to see my own!”

Maui hadn’t meant to snap, but snap he did, causing her to rear back as though struck. Her incredulity was turning into something else that looked a lot like hurt, and Maui knew that if he stayed for one minute too long she might actually convince him, so he did the only right thing: he sighed and stood, picking up his fishhook. “Your people need you.”

Moana scowled, and stood as well. “We need you as well! You’re--”

“Someone they did just fine without until now. They’ll keep doing fine as long as they’ve got you,” Maui cut her off, and he gave a grin that was only half-forced. There was no denying that speaking that truth aloud felt bitter, but in a way it was almost a relief. Humans didn’t need him, and most of all  _ he _ didn’t need to prove anything anymore. 

He was  _ Maui, _ come what may. 

“And besides, you should give me some credit. I’m Maui, demigod of wind and sea and all that. Don’t write me off as doomed from the start.”

Moana shook her head, incredulity finally giving way to anger. “I promised I’d come with you and I will. I can’t let you try this on your own!”

Maui shrugged. “You say that like you have a choice on the matter,” he stated, tilting his head. “You don’t know the way to Cape Reinga. I never told you where it is.”

Realization sank right away, and Moana tried to make her move the next moment: she lifted her arm, the one with the bracelet, to try shrinking him - to  _ stop _ him. Maui was rather certain that it wouldn’t work on him, because something that couldn’t work on deities probably wouldn’t have effect on a demigod either, but he had no intention to stay and find out. Before Moana could use it, he lifted his hook - and shot up towards the sky the next moment.

_ “Screeaaw!” _

“No! Don’t you dare! You come back here! Maui! MAUI!”

Her voice was quickly lost to the wind, and Maui kept flight upwards, so that he’d be hidden by clouds, too far for her to see… and too far for her to follow. Not knowing what direction to take, she would have to turn back eventually, and go home. 

_ She’s going to give me such an earful if I make it out of this alive,  _ Maui thought, and couldn’t hold back a small, screechy laugh. He’d welcome that, if it meant he would see her again; he’d be happier to listen to all of her insults than he’d ever been to receive any praise.

_ It can still happen. I can do this.  _

With a quick look below it, to ensure her boat was nowhere in sight - he could barely see it through his hawk eyes, and that meant Moana couldn’t possibly spot him anymore - Maui finally stopped going upwards and turned to the west, towards Cape Reinga. Getting there would take no more than a couple of days of continuous flight, but of course he had to pause and rest for time to time, so that he wouldn’t arrive entirely exhausted.

It didn’t matter: he had waited for so long, a day or two more would make no difference. He would make it there eventually, and then… then he’d succeed, or die in the attempt.

Either way, he  _ would _ cross the leaping place of spirits, and have some answers at long last.

* * *

Tamatoa had almost made it to the shore of the Taniwha’s main island when the headless warrior sprung up on him again - _literally_ sprung up on him. 

He had taken the long way around instead of the most direct route, and he was so close the water barely reached up to the first joint of his limbs, that he could hear the sound of palm tree leaves rustling in the light breeze.

“Hah! I made it! Some  _ guardian _ these guys have go--”

His words were lost under the sudden noise of grinding stone and splashing water when the stretch of ocean between him and the island, and the sand beneath it, seemed to… explode, for the lack of a better word. Something huge rose from under the sand, sending splashes everywhere and striking Tamatoa suddenly, in a way that was all too reminiscent of the geyser jet that had knocked him back in Lalotai and started that whole sorry mess in the first place. And the result was the same, too. 

_ Oh, not again! _

Tamatoa fell back into the water with a huge splash, letting out a gasp when his shell hit the sand and rocks beneath him. He immediately scrambled to get up, but - again - a terrible weight on his abdomen pinned him down. This time his head was not submerged, and he could see the headless warrior had a knee braced against him.

“Seriously? How did you even  _ get _ under the sand?”

There was no reply, no sign the being had even heard him: it simply raised its huge spear high, ready to bring it down on his throat. And this time, Maui was not there to stop it. 

_ Well, I wasn’t the last of my kind for long. _

For a moment, just one, the thought of giving up and waiting for the blow to come didn’t seem all that bad. It would be fun to see Maui’s face once he realized he had died first and beaten him to the Underworld, he thought, and maybe he could find his Gran there, ask if he’d  _ really _ been worth all the trouble. But he wasn’t sure he would like the answer and, just as the spear whistled through the air towards his unprotected face, Tamatoa knew with utmost certainty that he didn’t  _ want _ to die. 

So he cried out and reached up, in a last-ditch attempt to stop the spear. 

His claws closed down on it and, with a dreadful noise of grating stone, its sharp tip stopped mere inches away from Tamatoa’s flesh. Above him, the stone warrior doubled its efforts to impale him, putting all of its strength and weight behind the spear. It took all of Tamatoa’s own strength to keep it from coming down on him, and he knew right away that he wouldn’t be able to hold it off for much longer: he would tire out first, and when he did--!

Panic rising, he clenched his claws tighter around the spear, trying to break it. He’d shattered stone before, reduced boulders to dust, but whatever that spear and its owner were made of, it was far stronger. It withstood his attempt at breaking it and, despite his best efforts, it sunk another inch down through his grip. Tamatoa found himself staring closely at the tip, which was carved intricately - a serpent in a figure-of-eight shape, the very tip of it shaped like a bird’s beak. Come to think of it, it looked a an awful lot like--

_ … Wait. Wait just a sec.  _

Tamatoa’s eyes widened, moving from the tip of the spear to its headless owner, which was still pressing down on it with all its might.  _ “You,” _ Tamatoa wheezed, doubling his efforts to keep the spear’s tip away from his face. “That’s why the bracelet didn’t work! Is  _ this _ where you’ve been all along?”

There was no reply, of course: headless beings do not talk, and even if the Manaia had wished to tell him anything, they couldn’t have done so. Without a head, they didn’t have any thought or agency of their own - a living doing rather than a living being, carrying out endlessly the task of guarding those islands, given to them by those who held their head. 

_ The Taniwha. It was them. If we can get that head back-- _

That thought was cut short by a shout - “HEY!” - and something huge, spiked and red suddenly entering his field vision. It smashed against the stone statue’s side, and threw it off-balance. With one leg braced against Tamatoa’s abdomen, it had no way to regain its footing: the instant Tamatoa let go of the spear, his foe fell back into the sea, splashing up a wall of water.

Tamatoa had just enough time to wonder what in the world had just happened before something - no, someone - slammed against his side, knocking him back upright. 

“Move it, crab!” Pilifeai shouted, and was off the next moment, swimming away towards the open sea. Not bad advice, all things considered, and one he probably should follow as quickly as possible - before the Manaia, or what was left of them, managed to stand up again. 

Tamatoa ran off as quickly as he could, not pausing a moment to look back until he was far enough from the Taniwha’s islands to be sure it hadn’t followed him. Then, finally, he paused on a stretch of shallow waters to catch his breath. “The Manaia,” he gasped, turning back to look at the now distant outline of the Taniwha’s main island. “I can’t  _ believe _ it.”

“Whatever you’re mumbling, I should hope you’re thankful,” Pilifeai’s voice rang out somewhere on his left. “You  _ do _ realize I kind of saved your life back there, right? If not for me, you’d now have a stone spear right through whatever you pass off as a brain. Your thanks is not necessary, but it would be appreciated and-- huh. Are you listening at all?”

Tamatoa didn’t bother to answer: he turned to the west, where he knew Maui and the human must have sailed, heading for Cape Reinga - where, past the leaping place of spirits, was the entrance of the Underworld. Except that no one living would be allowed in… with only one exception. Just  _ one. _

“They don’t need to do this,” Tamatoa muttered, and turned to Pilifeai. “Don’t you see? They don’t  _ need _ to do it!”

Pilifeai blinked, taken aback. “Who doesn’t need what?”

“Maui and the human! They don’t need to get past Hine-nui-te-pō!”

That caused the giant lizard to frown in clear confusion. “Huh. Did you hit your stupid head back there? Of course they need to, if they want to get into the Underworld--”

“But they don’t need to! We just need--  _ they _ just need-- uugh, why am I wasting time with you?” Tamatoa snapped, and took a step forward. “What time did they leave this morning?”

“Uh… just after dawn,” Pilifeai said, only to blink again when Tamatoa muttered a curse and turned his back to him to glance at the horizon again. Their boat had at least half a day on him, at it would be faster, because he would need to take a longer route that would allow him to reach the surface to breathe while they could keep going straight ahead. The more time he wasted, the fewer chances he had to catch up with them before they got themselves killed for no good reason. 

He had to move, and hope that something - bad weather, monsters, currents,  _ anything _ \- would slow them down, so that he would be able to catch up with them. So that it wouldn’t be too late.

“What in the blazes has gotten into-- hey! HEY! Where are you going?”

“Take a wild guess!” Tamatoa shouted without turning, and the next moment he was back underwater, moving as quickly as he could across the bottom of the ocean. He didn’t turn to check if Pilifeai was following - though of course he was, the nosy creep - and just kept pressing on, only one thought in mind.

_ Please, don’t let it be too late. _

* * *

For a time, Moana’s boat just drifted.

She’d shouted after Maui until her throat was sore, tried to follow him only to lose sight of him almost right away, cursed some more, begged for someone, anyone - the Ocean, her grandmother, every single one of her ancestors - to help her, to show her the way somehow.

There was no answer and no help, but Moana refused to turn her boat back towards home. She couldn’t do it.

_ What choice is there? Reading the stars and currents is useless without knowing where Cape Reinga even is. _

Moana let out a groan, sitting down against the mast. There was the warm weight of Pua on her lap, and she reached to stroke his head, gaze fixed on the waves. The sun was beginning to climb down the sky, and Moana realized she had no idea just how far Cape Reinga even was. How long would it take Maui to reach it? Was he already there? Was he already taking on the Goddess of Death?

… Was he already dead?

The thought was too horrible for her to contemplate, and she shook her head to chase it away. Her fingers closed on her necklace. “I don’t know what to do,” she heard herself saying. “I don’t know where to go. Can’t someone just… point me in the right direction? Anyone?”

_ “Bwook,” _ Heihei replied from the hold. She sighed.

“Not helping, but thanks,” she muttered, and picked up Pua to hold him at her same eye level. “I can’t  _ believe _ him,” she said, trying and failing to feel anger. It wasn’t the first time Maui left her behind, but this time it was different - it had been out of concern for her life. And while she couldn’t fault him, while she knew that she might have done the same thing in his place, it was frustrating to no end. She wanted to help him, and now she was stuck--

A sound of splashing water caused her to look up. At first she could see nothing, but then there was a movement on the right of her boat - a large manta ray, one that she  _ knew _ wasn’t just a manta ray at all. 

“Gramma Tala!”

There was no reaction, and Moana had a moment to wonder if that was just a manta after all, if hers had been only wishful thinking. Then it nudged the boat a couple of times, and the doubt was gone. Moana leaped on her feet and reached to grab the rudder. “Show me the way! Where do I have to-- huh. Isn’t that… I have to go back?”

No reply: her grandmother’s spirit just swam off the way she had come, taking her back on course towards the Taniwha’s islands, and Moana fumbled to follow. If she wanted her to go back, there had to be a reason. Maybe that was the right direction to Cape Reinga, after all, and Maui had led her the wrong way for a time just to trick her. It was definitely something he would do. 

As the boat picked up speed so did the manta, Moana kept her gaze fixed on her - and therefore she didn’t notice something else, something that glimmered as it moved quickly right below the sea’s surface, until it was a moment too late to avoid it. 

_ Thump. _

“Wha--”

The impact, followed by the boat’s bottom scraping against something, wasn’t violent enough to damage it - but it did throw her off balance. Pua squealed, his fall stopped by the mast; Moana managed to hang onto a rope, mind reeling, wondering if she’d just hit a rock close to the surface. Realization only sank in when a familiar voice suddenly spoke up. 

“Hey, watch where you’re-- oh! Human!”

Moana turned, and found herself staring into an equally familiar pair of eyes. Well, one of them, at least.

“... Tamatoa?”

The giant crab grinned at her. He was standing in water shallow enough for him to keep his head just above it. “I got you guys on time! Really, you have no idea how much I had to run to catch up with--”

“Wait. Were you following us?”

“No! I mean, yes, I was following you! That’s… not as bad as it sounds, honest!” Tamatoa added quickly, lifting his pincers above the water in a gesture of surrender. “I just found something! I mean, someone! I mean-- hey, where’s Maui? Can you make sure he doesn’t kill me before he hears me out and… huh. Human? What is it? Look, if this is about the hairpin, I am  _ sorry, _ okay? I was really about to give it to your guys, but… oh, I prepared an apology in song form! Want to hear it? It’s really good, if I say so mysel--”

“Maui is going to Cape Reinga all on his own,” Moana blurted out, causing him to trail off. 

“He... what?” he asked, his expression nothing short of horrified. “He’s not with you?”

“He turned into a hawk and just went. He wanted to keep me safe, and I  _ get _ it, but… uuugh. I couldn’t stop him, and I don’t know the way--”

“Seriously?” Tamatoa snapped, exasperation clear in his voice. “He doesn’t even  _ need _ to do that! He doesn’t have to get anywhere near Hine-nui-te-pō! I found the Manaia - they can come and go as they please! We free the guy, give them the hairpin, and they can get everything done for us!”

Moana blinked. “You found… who?”

“The Manaia! I told you about them, babe. The messenger between the living and the world of spirit? The one who went missing - and man, wasn’t Hine-nui-te-pō angry when they vanished? It’s the Headless Guy! They’ve been there all along!” 

Wait. What? “That was the… wait, is  _ that _ why the bracelet didn’t work on that thing?”

“Yep! They’re a deity, though you wouldn’t tell from the form they’re trapped in,” Tamatoa added, then paused. “... Do you want me to tell you how I found out?” he added a little hopefully, clearly hoping for a chance to brag some, but Moana couldn’t even begin to wonder about it. 

“And you came after the boat to tell us?” she asked slowly, realization finally sinking in. He had ran after them, leaving his treasure behind, to try stopping them from risking their lives at Cape Reinga. Among the fear and frustration there was suddenly something else, a sort of relief that lifted at least some weight off her chest.

_ Maybe I wasn’t so wrong about him. _

“Yes, but some good that did, since the idiot went off ahead all on his ow--”

_ “Iti haere.” _

“Wha-- hey!” Tamatoa protested, but Moana just grabbed his shrunken form before he could sink and pulled him on board. He opened his mouth to protest again, but Moana spoke first. 

“We must stop Maui before he gets himself killed. You know the way to Cape Reinga, right?” she asked, but she already knew the answer, because there  _ had _ to be a reason why her grandmother had led her to him.

A huff. “Of course I do! It’s, let me check…” Tamatoa turned to glance up at the sun - causing Moana to wonder how could he know what direction to take when travelling on the bottom of the ocean - and finally turned to the west. “That way.”

“How long does it take to get there?”

“Some three days and two nights for me if I’m walking fast, so maybe a couple of days if we keep going at nigh-- whoa! Hey!” he cried out when Moana immediately turned the sail to catch the wind, causing the boat to soar forward. Pua let out a surprised squeal, too, but neither of them tumbled into the water, and Moana kept her eyes fixed on the horizon. 

“We’ll keep going at night,” she said.

“Huh. Don’t you kinda need sleep?”

“Can you sail a boat?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Then I won’t sleep. We won’t be able to catch up with Maui on time if we stop at night. Can you just make sure I stay on course?”

“Sure. That’s a piece of cake,” Tamatoa replied with a shrug, causing Moana to frown slightly.

“You don’t usually travel on the surface. How did you learn to navigate?”

The question seemed to hit a nerve, for Tamatoa shifted slightly. “Maui taught me a thing or two,” he muttered. There was a hint of bitterness in his voice that didn’t escape her - and, unless it was all just wishful thinking, there was a little hint of something that just might be shame.

_ Look, if this is about the hairpin, I am sorry, okay? _

“I see,” she finally said, then, “Tamatoa?”

“Yes?”

_ Thank you for coming after us.  _

“... I believe you. About the hairpin.”

Tamatoa blinked up at her for a couple of moments before crossing his pincers. “Well, about time! I tried to tell you guys, but Maui got all prickly and you kept  _ leaking _ and… er…” his words faded, like he’d just been reminded of something, and he looked away. “Anyway, I... Should have said I had it sooner,” he mumbled. “I sort of… forgot about it after a while. I was having fun,” he added. He sounded immensely uncomfortable admitting as much, and Moana decided to put him out of his misery.

“Just help me get to Maui on time, and we’ll be even,” she said, causing Tamatoa to grin. 

“Right! And, uh, if we save his life and all, will you tell him…?”

“That he’s got to thank you? You bet I will. After I’m done insulting him.”

Tamatoa laughed. “Hah! Sign me up for  _ that _ show! And if you’re taking suggestions, I think he could also use a good smacking or two with that oar of-- huh. Is it me or this boat is going a lot faster than usual?”

It was, and Moana knew why the moment she glanced over her shoulder, so see the odd-looking, unnatural wave that was carrying them forward. She smiled, and turned back to the horizon. “As I  _ might _ have mentioned before,” he said, tightening her grip on the ropes, “the Ocean is my friend.”

Tamatoa frowned, looking off-board. “Oooh, so that’s what’s going on! About time it made itself usefu-- hey!” he protested, stumbling back, when a sudden splash of water hit him in the face. “I’m just saying it how it is, man!”

Moana laughed, and gripped the rudder more tightly. “Hang on tight,” she said. “This is going to be one fast sail.”

_ Just please, please, let it be fast enough,  _ she thought. _ Don’t let it be too late.  _


	15. Cape Reinga

Tupuna had absolutely no idea what to make of that kid.

She’d been sceptical from the start, to be completely honest. Larvae were always tiny, of course, but the one that had come out of Tīaka’s surviving egg was even smaller than average - a rickety thing she wouldn’t have expected to live past a week, really. She had wondered, though not aloud, whether the egg had been damaged in the fight with the eel that had eaten the rest.

“Ah well,” she remembered saying. “Can’t win them all. I’m sure you’ll have better luck with the next clutch.”

It had seemed like the best thing to say given the circumstances, and she had shrugged off the way her daughter had turned her head away. Tīaka had always been a bit funny in the head, after all, and of course losing her first clutch - not to mention both of her claws due to her _very_ questionable choice of a mate - had been a blow, but she’d come to see things her way eventually.

She wasn’t the first nor would be the last to lose her eggs; Tupuna herself had lost plenty back in the day, and Tīaka was the only one of her brood she’d seen surviving into adulthood, except for a son who had done his duty and then had been consumed by his mate, as every self-respecting male should. Shame that none of his offsprings had survived, but that was how life went.

Given some time, Tīaka  would come to her senses, shrug it off, and leave the doomed offspring alone - or eat it, though it wouldn’t make much of a snack - before moving on to look for another mate. Life without her claws wouldn’t be easy, but Tupuna was willing to share meals and watch her back for as long as it took, if it meant ensuring her line wouldn’t end there.

Except that Tīaka was stubborn as a rock and dumb as a barnacle, and she hadn’t come to see things her way at all. She stayed in the back of the lair, hardly talking and eating just enough to survive and limbs folded around her only offspring, for weeks. Tupuna had known they were in trouble when she decided to give the larva a _name,_ because naming things is the first step to getting unnecessarily attached.

Defying Tupuna’s expectations, Tamatoa did live past a week and even began getting slightly bigger, if at a slower rate than one would expect. He would remain easy prey for a long time in Lalotai, and there was simply no way Tīaka would be able to protect him for that long, maimed as she was. That would certainly force her to face the facts and give up, Tupuna had thought.

Gods, had she been wrong.

_“You can’t be serious! Are you even listening to yourself? Leaving Lalotai! We’re not supposed to--”_

_“There is no way Tamatoa can survive here until he’s big enough. I can’t protect him from most of what lives here, and you can’t watch us all the time. If we find someplace safer to be until he’s grown, then he’ll have a chance.”_

_“This is beyond stupid, even for you - you really got your father’s brains. It’s a runty larva. It’s not worth the hassle. You need to have another clutch of eggs and forget all about-- Where do you think you're going? Don't turn your back to me, young lady! You come back here right now! If you do this I won’t be coming with you, you hear me? You’ll be on your own out there, you and that--”_

“Gran! Look! Look what I found!”

Tamatoa’s frankly annoying voice rang out suddenly, snapping her out of the memory. Tupuna allowed herself a moment to roll her eyes behind closed eyelids before she opened them and glanced down. Tamatoa, still smaller than one of her eyeballs, was waving a claw for attention, yet another piece of mother-of-pearl in his other one. Just _how many_ of those useless things did he have to find before the novelty wore off?

“You have an entire pile of those,” she pointed out.

“They’re so shiny!”

“It doesn’t make them any more useful, small stuff.”

That caused Tamatoa to huff. “I’m not small!” he protested, and Tupuna snorted out a chuckle almost in spite of herself. To be fair the boy was growing quickly enough, at a rate that came remarkably close to their species’ standard, and would likely hit a growth spurt soon. Maybe he wouldn’t stay a runt after all, but he was still _so_ tiny compared to her.

“Oh yes, you are,” she said, flicking an antennae at him. “Tinytoa.”

“I’m getting bigger! This seashell is almost too small for me, see?” he added, spinning on the spot to show her. “I’ll need a bigger one soon!”

Oh Gods, not again. Last time he’d changed seashell - a necessary measure until he became old enough to harden his own shell - he had been absolutely insufferable: no shell seemed to be good enough for him. He’d refused to get into perfectly fine ones, claiming that they were too ugly, and for some reason Tīaka  had agreed to look for better ones until that fussy little nuisance saw one he liked. And then he’d insisted on keeping the old one, too.

She was spoiling him, that was it. Who even cared what the shell looked like, as long as it did its job? It was for protection, not for something as pointless as decoration. Back in her day she had to fight her clutch mates for decent shells, sometimes to the death. It was eat or be eaten, siblings or not. That at least ensured that the strongest would come out on top; she had little doubt that, had Tamatoa had to go through the same, he wouldn’t have lasted--

“Oh! Can I have one with mother-of-pearl in it? That would look perfect!”

_Gods, he must have taken after his father._

With a sigh - why, _why_ had she agreed to leave with them? - Tupuna leaned her head down and closed her eyes. “Ask your mother when she comes back from her evening stroll. Until then, how about a fun game of keeping quiet?” she added, hoping he wouldn’t start singing like he had last time she’d been trying to take a nap. No self-respecting giant crab would waste their breath on something as pointless as singing, but since he’d heard some human fisher singing Tamatoa had gotten into his head that he should do it, too. And, somehow, he seemed to think he was good at it. “First one to make a noise loses and--”

Her words were covered by a sudden rumbling noise, which was nothing new: there were occasional eruptions in the archipelago, but they generally resulted in a little noise and nothing more. However, what followed that time was new: before the echo was even faded there was another rumbling noise, much louder and much closer, and something caused even their cave to shake, the pool of water connecting it to the ocean suddenly rising in ripples and small waves.

Tamatoa let out a shriek, dropping the piece of mother-of-pearl to go hiding behind one her limbs; Tupuna, on the other hand, immediately stood. The cave stopped shaking within moments, with no damage to be seen anywhere, but something had happened outside… and all of her instincts were now telling that something was _wrong._

“Gran?” Tamatoa called out, voice shaking, when she stepped towards the entrance. She turned to glance at him with one eyestalk, not breaking her stride.

“You stay here.”

“What was that?”

“How would I know? Just stay where you are.”

“Where’s Ma?” he asked. Tupuna didn’t bother replying to that last question before leaving, because of course she could only repeat herself - _“How would I know?”_ \- and that would be pointless. She would know once she was out, anyway.

And, as it turned out, she didn’t need to get very far from the cave to figure it out. The peak that turned one side of the island into a steep cliff had halved in height, and the tons of rocks, boulders and other rabble that were now into the water, explained everything: a collapse, caused by the tremors of a nearby eruption. All said and done, nothing to worry about.

Except that Tīaka, who never wandered far from the cave’s underwater entrance, was nowhere to be seen. With a renewed feeling that something was not right, Tupuna slowly approached the mass of rocks that had fallen down into the ocean. She only realized exactly what she’d been looking for when her eyes found it.

One of Tīaka’s limbs was poking out of it, limp and still. Tupuna didn’t really need to approach any further to know she was dead, but she did either way, and smacked it lightly with her claw. It stayed limp, and she let out a long sigh.

“Of all evenings to go out and stretch your legs,” she muttered, reaching to get the rocks off her daughter’s body. Her shell should have been tough enough to withstand even that crushing weight, and indeed it was barely cracked, but her head, thick as it had always been, simply wasn’t thick enough. With no pincers left to shield it, she’d had no chance.

It had been quick if nothing else, Tupuna supposed. It wasn’t something she’d had ever wished to see, but death was part of life, and she’d seen too much of it in to let it take her aback for long. She had tried her best to keep it at bay for as long as possible, but the time comes, sooner or later, with no distinction for the old or the young. It had happened, so she may as well make the best of it. She dragged the body in shallow water closer to the cave’s entrance, used her pincers to widen the cracks on the shell to expose the flesh beneath, and walked back into the cave.

“Gran? What was it? What happened?”

For a few moments Tupuna said nothing, staring down at her grandson. Leaving Lalotai to give him a chance had been Tīaka’s idea, one she’d gone along with rather grudgingly and for her daughter’s sake alone. Giving him a chance at all had been Tīaka’s idea, her wish, but now she was gone and nothing was left to keep her there. She could leave him to fend for himself, and return to Lalotai. Even on his own, he’d have more chances to live than he would in the realm of monsters; that wouldn’t be going entirely against Tīaka’s wish, all things considered. His mother’s body would provide nourishment for a time. If death claimed him regardless, then it was meant to.

_I can go home._

_He’s all that’s left of your line. Tīaka is gone, but he’s still here._

_He’s weak._

_He’ll grow stronger._

Unaware of her thoughts, Tamatoa took a few hesitant steps forward. “Gran?” he called out.

Tupuna stared down at him for a few more moments, a tiny little thing with a fancy seashell and no clue of what had just happened, no clue of her musings. Finally, she sighed and turned back to the exit.

“Come, boy,” she finally said. “It’s time to eat.”

* * *

“Human, we’re out of food.”

“I know.”

“If we just stop for a bit to catch some fi--”

“We can’t stop.”

“So, can I eat--”

“Both chicken and pig are off-limits.”

“Aw, c’mon! How about a compromise? I just eat the chicken’s wings. I mean, it can’t even fly, so why would it need them?”

“Tamatoa. You’re a decapod, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“So correct me if I’m wrong, but you happen to have a pair of limbs you have absolutely _no_ use for, either.”

“Well, I guess-- Hey! _That_ was a low blow!”

“I know. My chicken’s wings are off limits.”

“Fine, fine,” Tamatoa grumbled, and rested his chin down on his claws again. “But I’m still hungry. Aren’t you-- Oh. I guess you’ve got to be. You look terrible.”

“Noted,” Moana said, her voice flat. Truth be told, she wasn’t just hungry: she was also bone tired. While the Ocean pushing the boat forward was making their journey faster, she still had to maneuver it to make sure it stayed on course - which meant she couldn’t take a minute’s break. Stopping wasn’t an option at all, not with time so tight and Maui’s life hanging on how quickly they could get to him.

“No, really. I am sure that if you turned me back my size, I chewed you some and then spat you out, you wouldn’t look half as bad--” Tamatoa paused when Moana gave him one single, long look. “... Right. Not a nice thing to say.”

Moana managed a ghost of a smile. “You’re getting the hang of it,” she said, reaching to tug at the sail. Her limbs felt stiff and heavy as wood, but she forced herself to ignore it. She would rest later, she thought. After they caught up with Maui she’d hit him with her oar, then sleep for a couple of days, and finally resume hitting him with renewed energy. She refused to imagine a scenario in which she didn’t get to see Maui again.

“Would you like me to sing?”

“Huh?”

“To help you stay awake.”

_Oh no. Please, don’t._

“Talking will do just fine,” Moana said quickly, raking her brain for something to say in order to distract him.

“Oh. By the way, you never told me if you liked--”

“Is the entire island an entrance to the Underworld?” Moana blurted out, causing him to trail off and blink at her for a few moments before he shook his head.

“Nah, not really. The island is big - and I do mean, _big._ What we're looking for is the cape at the northwestern tip. You can’t miss it, because there’s this big cliff - Te Rerenga Wairua."

“The leaping place of spirits?”

“Yep. It’s quite a drop, and word has it that spirits have to leap from this cliff to get to the Underworld. No idea why. Maybe to make sure they’re dead? ‘Cause if not, they can be certain they’ll be deceased when they get to the bottom.”

“And that’s all they need to do to get in? Leap?”

“And then climb down the roots of some old tree. Hine-nui-te-pō is usually hanging there - like, not from the _tree,_ just around there. And by usually I mean all the time. If you’re dead, no problem - she’ll let you through and then come and go as you please. If you’re alive, she kills you and _then_ lets you through. Unless you’re the Manaia, of course. They got on well - she chose them as the messenger and all.”

“... Any chances she may be off for a stroll?”

“While I like your optimism, human, there is _literally_ not a chance in hell. She never leaves the entrance unguarded. That’s how Maui managed to get away when she caught him trying to sneak in - she couldn’t follow him.”

“If he got away once, he could do it again,” Moana pointed out, gaining herself a rather unimpressed look from Tamatoa.

“Because he ran off when he realized he couldn’t win, babe. Do you think he would run off _now,_ after coming this far?”

No, Moana knew, he wouldn’t: this time it was personal, not just a stunt like many others before. “So our only hope is to catch him before he tries.”

“Exactly. Also, you’re gonna have to watch it when we approach. Two seas kinda meet right off Cape Reinga and that creates some pretty strong currents. Not a problem for me, but for your boat...”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, adjusting the sails slightly. “Do I keep going this way?”

Tamatoa glanced up at the stars, tilting his head one way and then the other. “Yes, this direction for a while more, then we turn south. I’ll tell you when.”

Moana glanced up at the stars herself and, through the veil of exhaustion, she thought she’d seen something familiar. “... I’ve sailed these waters before.”

“Oh, right. If you go north instead of south, you’ll wind up at Te Fiti’s island. It’s... maybe a day and a night of navigation away? I could say something corny about life and death not being too far apart, but I’m too hungry to bother. By the way, if you still had the heart of Te Fiti we might actually have a chance against the Goddess of Death, but _noooo,_ you had to give it away, huh?”

“I didn’t give it away. I _returned_ it.”

“Pfft. Semantics,” Tamatoa muttered, and leaned his head down on his claws again. Too tired to even begin to argue - what would be the point? - Moana just focused on staying on course, occasionally glancing up at the sky. Stars were still there to guide her, only a few of them hidden by a veil of clouds, but it wasn’t stars she was searching for, not really. What she hoped to see, each time she lifted her gaze, was the outline of a hawk flying against the moon. She had no such luck.

_Maybe he’s already there. Maybe he’s already dead._

Moana’s grip on the rudder tightened, and she forced herself to chase away the thought. She would find Maui on time, and she couldn’t allow herself _not_ to believe as much, even for a moment. “If he dies on me, I swear I’m going to kill him,” she growled, causing Tamatoa to snicker. Somehow, the sound made her feel a bit better.

At least until he began humming a suspiciously familiar tune.

* * *

It was just dawn when Maui finally came within sight of Cape Reinga.

The ocean below him raged, as always in the meeting point of two seas, but soaring through the air he was unconcerned. He had plenty to fear, sure enough, but not from the ocean - not that time. He flew past the raging waters, onto the island, and came to land at the very top of the steep cliff. Te Rerenga Wairua, the leaping place of spirits. Maybe he would take the leap that day, after all, but not without a fight.

Never without a fight.

Maui let his gaze wander across the horizon, taking in the sight, and finally drew in a deep breath. Trying to sneak past the entrance was a far more attractive strategy, but one that was doomed to fail. He would know: he’d tried before. And besides, last time he’d gone all sneaky on a goddess, he’d sort of almost broken the world. He’d rather not make that mistake again.

 _This is on my head,_ and finally called out.

“Hine-nui-te-pō! Great woman of night!”

Nothing happened for several moments: there was only the sound of the waves and the wind, but Maui did not move. Nothing happened in Cape Reinga that Hine-nui-te-pō could not hear; she must have heard him, and she would soon show hersel--

Maui had no time to finish that thought: all of a sudden the wind stilled and, with the faintest sound of splashing water, she rose within his sight. Tall as a mountain, feet firmly planted before the entrance down below, Hine-nui-te-pō towered over the cliff Maui stood on, blocking out the sun and causing a cold, cold shadow to fall over him.

Her skin was red as the earth she’d been made from, her eyes black as night and her mouth too wide - a cut from ear to ear, filled with sharp teeth of black obsidian. Mouths opened on the palms of her hands as well, and those palms were now upturned, as though she was accepting an offering. Her hair was a tangle of dead seaweed, which fell onto her shoulders and down her back like a shroud.

“Maui of the Men,” she spoke. Her voice was the gargling of the deadly riptide, the last breath of a drowning man, and it held no small amount of mockery. “No longer trying to sneak your way in like a thief?”

Maui gave a somewhat sheepish grin. “Yeah, about that… I’m sorry. That wasn’t a nice thing to do, trying to sneak past you and kind of subvert the laws of existence. I figure I do owe you an apology.”

A tilt of a massive head, and a sneer. “Why, you are capable of this much. Very well. Apology accepted. Shall you do it the right way and throw yourself to your death?”

Well, she was about as pleasant as Maui remembered her. He made him best to grin and make himself look as nonthreatening as possible while still holding onto his fishhook. In the end, he resolved to lean on it. “We both know the fall wouldn’t kill me,” he said. “But hey, thanks for the suggestion. Nice to see you’re still so friendly. It’s been a while since last time.”

“Not long enough,” was the remark. Her eyes, black as the blackest night, narrowed to slits; even her eyelashes looked much like fangs. Maui shrugged.

“Fair enough. Look, I know we didn’t part in friendly terms, and I know there is a good reason why I’m not exactly on top of the list of your favorite people…”

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself,” Hine-nui-te-pō spoke up. Her voice was different now, she caress of water rising to cover your nose and mouth. “I’ve disliked you from your first breath. It had nothing to do with your actions - fools must be expected to act like fools.”

Well, Maui thought, that was new. He opened his mouth to ask what exactly had he done before he was even born, but she resumed talking first, and the reply chilled him to the bone.

“Saved by the gods. You think they saved you from the brink of death, but you were past it, Maui - you were dead. _You were mine,_ as all of the stillborn are. You came into this world too early to survive _._ ”

Stillborn. Something about that word was terrifying, but in a way there was relief there, because it confirmed everything he’d suspected and hoped since Tamatoa had revealed him what he’d witnessed one day, long ago. It gave him a certainty he’d been desperately looking for.

_I was not abandoned. I was buried at sea._

“And yet here I am,” Maui heard himself saying. Hine-nui-te-pō spread her arms. _Yes,_ she seemed to be saying, _here you are._

“Your soul was on its way to me before the Ocean took you and the other gods decided you should live - though the reason why is a mystery to me. Why you of many? And what right did they have to take what was mine, without even consulting me? Death is my domain, not theirs. That was a slight I could not ignore. That first breath you drew was stolen from me, like all those you’ve drawn since. To make you a demigod was adding insult to injury.”

_From this moment on, every breath you take is a gift from me._

His parting words to Tamatoa after he had ripped off his leg echoed in Maui’s memory, but of course that had been different. He had taken the decision to spare him; Hine-nui-te-pō had to bow to a choice someone else had made. And that someone had not been him.

“It wasn’t my decision, either,” he finally said, and to his mild surprise the goddess nodded.

“No, it was not. I am saying your very existence is an insult, not that I blame you for it.”

“Ah. Thanks?”

“Should you decide to forfeit your life and take your place in my realm, you’d be welcome in it. But,” she added, her unnaturally large mouth stretching in a smile, “I suspect that is not what you’re here for.”

All right, Maui thought, that was it. “I am here with a plea,” he said, gaining himself an unimpressed look. Between that and Te Fiti, it seemed that getting unimpressed looks from goddesses was what he did best those days.

“I do not listen to pleas. Other gods may be prayed upon for good winds and currents, for good harvest and nets full of fish. With them, you can bargain. Death does not bargain. It grants no boon, it heeds no prayer.”

“Just hear me out. I only ask to be let through for the shortest time. There is someone I need to find, and once I do--” Maui began, and trailed off when the goddess laughed, with a sound like crack of thunder. He sighed. “Can’t you at least let me finish before you laugh your head off?”

More laughter. Maui rolled his eyes and threw his fishhook over his shoulder. “Okay, really. Glad to see you have a sense of humor after all, but-- sheesh, are the mouths on your _hands_ laughing, too?”

The laughter finally died down, and Hine-nui-te-pō looked at him, fangs still bared in a grin. “You cannot truly think, even as a joke, that I will allow you to come through alive. No living, breathing being can cross this entrance. Not humans, not monsters or animals, not gods and certainly not you. Other gods may have made exceptions for you, but I will not do the same.”

“The Manaia could cross,” Maui pointed out, and the smile immediately faded from Hine-nui-te-pō’s face. When she spoke again, her voice was icy. Not a surprise: if there was anybody she had been in truly good terms with, except for the souls of the dead - her children, as she put it - that had been the Manaia.

“The Manaia is the messenger. They--”

“I hear they’ve vanished.”

“No one else alive will cross the entrance,” the goddess bristled. “Which begs the question - how desperate are you to get in? Because that can be arranged, at the price of your life. You cannot gain access without losing it first.”

Oh well, Maui thought, that had been worth a shot. It wasn’t like he’d expected it to work, but sneaking in undetected was impossible, and at least he had tried to be polite about it first. “I see. I am pretty desperate, really, so I guess I’m going to have to go through you.”

A snort. “Do you truly think you have any chance to best me?”

“Not really, but I might surprise myself. I did that a couple of times lately,” Maui said with a shrug, and lifted his hook. “And if I can’t, then I die and get through regardless.”

“That is the only possible outcome.”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying, tho--” Maui began, but he didn’t get to finish that sentence: the next moment Hine-nui-te-pō let out a drum-shattering shriek, the kind that could almost split the sky, and lifted a hand to bring it down on him, the mouth on its palm wide open. She was almost fast enough to get him.

Almost.

“CHEE-HOO!”

The hand struck the ground he’d been standing on, but missed him; all that those teeth got to bite into were rocks. In his hawk form, Maui darted away - and barely managed to avoid being hit in mid-air by the goddess’ other hand, and yet another set of teeth. She had more teeth than anybody had any right to, and not only on her face and hands: she had teeth on the back of her head, too, and in other weird places.

Being pierced by any one of those meant death, and Maui was all too aware of it. With a screech, covered by Hine-nui-te-pō’s own, he flew up above, blood rushing in his veins. He may be dying soon but at the moment, in the heat of the battle, he felt wonderfully alive.

_It’s Maui time._

* * *

When the horrifying shriek reached her, cutting through the air and mist like a knife and making her feel as though her heart had suddenly stilled in her chest, Moana instantly knew who it had to be. One look at Tamatoa, who had stilled as well and was looking up at her in what was nothing short of horror, confirmed what she feared: they were too late. Hine-nui-te-pō had been roused.

No, Moana told herself, exhaustion suddenly gone. It was late to stop that fight, but it wasn’t _too_ late: it would have been worse yet to arrive to find only silence, the signs of a battle, and no Maui. That would have meant it was over.

_But it’s not. It’s not over until--_

“It’s over,” Tamatoa croaked, taking a few steps back. As though that would get him any further away, with the boat still sailing forward through the fog. “Human, turn the boat and-- oh, wait. You’re _not_ going to turn the boat are you?”

“Nope.”

“You’re going to head straight for Cape Reinga and in the middle of the fight.”

“Yep,” Moana said, and glanced at Pua - who seemed paralyzed with terror. “Pua, get in the hold with Heihei.”

No reaction.

“Pua--” Moana started, but was cut off when Tamatoa suddenly took it upon himself to open the latch, push Pua in - causing both him and Heihei to protest loudly - and slam it shut.

“There. Not that your pig is any safer now, unless you listen to me and turn this boat!”

You don’t have to come, Moana wanted to say, but she had no time to: the next moment there was another shriek, carried by a sudden gust of wind that caused the mist to finally, finally lift.

And there, before them, was Cape Reinga.

In any other circumstances, it would have taken Moana’s breath away - not out of terror, but simply for the sheer magnificence of that place: above raging waters stood a majestic, steep cliff under an iron gray sky. It had an otherworldly beauty to it, and she could very easily believe that was where the world of the living and that of the spirits were connected. At the moment, however, there was no time for her to marvel, because all he could focus on was the gigantic form of red earth form towering over the cliff, lashing out at something - someone - who flew and danced and shifted just out of her reach. Maui.

“He… he’s holding his own,” Moana muttered, breathing out a sigh of relief.

“Great. Amazing. Looks like we’d actually hinder him. So how about we sail away and let him do his thing?” Tamatoa spoke, a hopeful note in his voice, only to groan when Moana shook her head and kept maneuvering the boat towards the island. Hine-nui-te-pō was still trying to strike Maui, causing stones and rocks to rain down into the raging waters below. “Human! Seriously! Turn this boat! There is nothing we can do that Maui can’t!”

“We’ll just get closer, so that if Maui needs any help we can intervene!”

“And get ourselves killed!”

“We might not need to do anything! Unless something goes wrong--”

Another furious shriek caused them both to recoil, and they turned just in time to see Hine-nui-te-pō striking out at the sky in a vicious backhand… and, this time, hitting its target. Maui was struck out of the sky, once again in his human form, and hit the ground violently while his fishhook plummeted down the side of the cliff, into the churning ocean below.

“... You mean, something like that?” Tamatoa spoke, deadpanned.

“Yes,” Moana heard herself saying. “Exactly like that.”

* * *

Losing his hook _again_ was, to put it mildly, a gigantic pain in the butt. And more pain would be on the menu if he didn’t get his hands back on it as quickly as possible, because of course he had absolutely no chance without it as opposed to having about one in a million _with_ it.

_And I was doing so well._

He had taken one hell of a blow in mid-air and the impact with the rocky ground hadn’t been much better; if he lived long enough to bruise, he was going to feel that for a week. It might even have been enough to make him lose consciousness if not for the fact good old Hine wouldn’t stop shrieking, keeping him from blacking out even if he’d wanted to.

He saw the jaws in her palm coming down at him with a triumphant cry, and he rolled aside just on time, avoiding being crushed by a hair’s breadth. He ducked under another attempt at swatting him with the other hand, and ran as quickly as he could towards the cliff’s opposite edge. He’d seen his fishhook falling there, and he could only hope he hadn’t fallen someplace where the water was too deep, because without shapeshifting powers there were limits to how deep down he could go. It was a desperate attempt, because he knew Hine-nui-te-pō would almost certainly get him before he could even try finding it, but it wasn’t like he had any other choice.

_At least I’ll go with a bang and without dragging anybody else with me. If Moana had come with me, she’d be--_

Maui reached the edge of the cliff, ready to leap, expecting to see churning ocean below. And he did see just that, raging water and sea foam barely covering rocks as sharp as fangs… plus something else, something in the middle of all that chaos that _really_ shouldn’t have been there.

A familiar sail with the symbol of a spiral in the middle.

… Well, of course Little Miss Wayfinder had found the way. It was what she did best, other than reading minds and proving him dead wrong. He never learned a lesson, did he?

Momentum working against him, Maui very nearly stumbled down the cliff and into the ocean, but he was able to stop himself by throwing himself on the ground. He rolled aside just one time to avoid yet another blow, mind scrambling to come up with another course of action.

_That’s where the hook fell. She’s trying to get to it. And if Hine-nui-te-pō sees her, she’ll kill her where she stands._

All right, he decided, new plan - keep the her attention well away from that particular area. It wasn’t much of a plan, and it was seriously lacking in the ‘how not to die’ department, but it wasn’t like he could be picky at that point. He’d improvise. Shapeshifting may be his main ability, but ‘sort of winging it’ came a close second or third. Definitely in the top five, anyhow.

With a leap - he didn’t need his hook for _those_ \- he landed well away from that side of the cliff, and turned back with a grin. He would have never thought he’d be pleased to have the undivided attention of the Goddess of Death, but then again life was unpredictable, always a surprise behind the corner.

All things considered, he didn’t think he was done with life just yet.

“Come and get me, lady,” he called out, shifting his weight and ready to leap out of reach again. “You’ll have to be faster than that.”

* * *

“Can’t you go faster?”

“I’m trying!”

“If she sees us, we’re _so_ dead.”

“I know! I got it the first ten times you said it!”

 _If you really got it you would have turned this boat around,_ Tamatoa thought, but he didn’t say anything; at that point, it had become clear it was useless to insist. Instead he just clung to the mast, and tried his best not to throw up.

The ocean around them was raging, pushing back against them, and there seemed to be rocks everywhere they looked. He had no idea how the human could manage to keep that boat afloat without it capsizing or being thrown against the rocks or the cliffside by one of those violent waves, but it made his admiration for her go up another notch, if somewhat grudgingly. After all, she was getting them on the path to certain death.

Or, more accurately, slightly to the left of it.

Tamatoa refused to turn, he refused to see just how close they were to Hine-nui-te-pō as she shrieked and howled, hitting and clawing at the cliff where Maui was, surely trying his best not to be turned into demigod purea. He seemed to be holding her off for now, but without the hook he had no chance.

“I can’t get any closer!” the human groaned in frustration. “The current is too strong, and--”

A rumbling sound caused her to trail off, and Tamatoa looked up just on time to see a couple of boulders and a rain of smaller rocks falling from the side of the cliff to plunge down into the ocean, clearly dislodged by Hine-nui-te-pō’s onslaught. They missed the boat, but not by much, and the impact raised enough water to throw them back. As the human struggled to overcome the backlash, Tamatoa peered up at the cliff above them.

 _You’re not blind, are you?,_ his Gran’s voice echoed somewhere in the back of his mind. _Half a cliff crumbled on her, that’s what happened. Stop asking questions with your mouth full._

Tamatoa shuddered and flattened himself against the floor, feeling immensely tiny, like he had been that day millennia ago. After all, right now he was only a little bigger than he’d been--

 _… Wait. Wait a minute._ Why _am I still small?_

Tamatoa stood again, frantically looking around, and he saw what he needed just moments later: the tip of a rock just above the surface… and little to the right of the boat, close enough for him to leap on it. Which was precisely what he did.

“Wha-- Tamatoa! What are you doing?” Moana’s voice reached him a moment later as he struggled to hold onto it despite the waves crashing against him. Two sets of pincers came in handy for that kind of thing, but he really could have used another leg to hold on. Clinging to the rock with all he had, he looked back at Moana.

“You can’t get through here with the boat.  Get away from here - out the current!”

“But the hook fell--”

“I know where it fell, I’m not blind! Just get further away and then turn me back my size! I’ll get the hook for you!”

Comprehension dawned on her face the next moment, and she immediately nodded, maneuvering the sail to get out of the rough spot. It took her less than a minute to get to a safe distance and, once she did, the lifted a hand to point at him. Tamatoa didn’t hear the word - she wasn’t close enough for him to hear through the raging water, inhuman screeching and whatnot - but he felt its effect, and how. The next moment there was that indescribable sensation of being inflated, and he found himself sinking beneath the raging water and towards the bottom of the ocean, the rock he’d been clinging onto hardly large enough for him to rest a limb on.

It was a good drop down to the bottom of the ocean, maybe a hundred feet, but it worked fine for him. Down there the current was less strong and, despite the sand being raised by Hine-nui-te-pō’s movements - Tamatoa preferred not  to wonder just how close she was, and was inwardly thankful of the fact she hadn’t spotted him before he sank into the churning water - he could see around easily enough if he squinted a bit. And, thankfully, he didn’t have to look far.

Back when he’d found it, almost a thousand years earlier, Maui’s fishhook had been stuck in the middle of a coral reef, and getting it out of there had been kind of a pain, especially since it had gotten him into a heated argument with a Megalodon who happened to live nearby. Now it was resting on sand, thank the gods, and it was easy to pick up. Which was good news, since the moment he stepped away a huge boulder crashed into the sea and sank right on the spot he had been moments before.

It wouldn’t have been anywhere near enough to hurt him through his shell, especially underwater, but--  
_half a cliff crumbled on her, that’s what happened_ _  
_ \-- Tamatoa still didn’t like how close it had been. He moved quickly, away from the cliff and well away from Hine-nui-te-pō. He had no idea what they next step may be, but hopefully the human had a plan. She usually had one, and hey, he’d recovered the hook, hadn’t he?

As far as he was concerned, he’d done his part.

* * *

Moving away from the worst of the currents was a struggle, especially since she didn’t dare move too far away from the island: should the wind change, it may have been nearly impossible to get ashore quickly. So Moana just moved along the coast, and maneuvered her boat closer when she finally saw a spot where she could get her boat on the ground. She couldn’t seen Hine-nui-te-pō now, as she was hidden by the cliff itself, but she could hear her all too well… as she could hear Maui’s shouts and jeers, unmistakable even though he was too far away for her to grasp the words.

_Please, just hang on a bit more. Only a bit longer. I’m sure Tamatoa will--_

There was another shriek, a crash so violent that the entire cliff seemed to shake, and then a rumble that Moana immediately recognized as trouble. She looked up to see several boulders falling off the side of the cliff… and plunging down straight at her.

For a moment, it was as though time had frozen. She knew in a split second that there was simply no way for her to move away quickly enough, that even jumping off the boat wouldn’t be enough to avoid them, and she found herself unable to move at all, the hands holding her oar suddenly numb.

_Grandma--!_

“Hey! Human!”

Moana recoiled when something huge suddenly blotted out the sun, coming between her and the falling rocks so quickly she had barely enough time to register what was happening. The realization hit her the same moment the boulders hit Tamatoa’s shell, causing him to stagger and give a noise that sounded a lot like all air had been blown out of him. They bounced off along with more than a few handfuls of trinkets, raising huge splashes, but Moana hardly even noticed.

“Tamatoa! Are you all right?”

“Uugh,” he groaned before stepping back. He shook his head and looked down at her, the grimace turning into a grin. “Sure I’m all right, babe. My shell’s tough,” he said, but his voice sounded somewhat shaky despite his best efforts. Still, Moana had no time to wonder about that. “Let’s… just get out of the way before this whole thing collapses on us, okay? I think we can get ashore on that spot over there.”

“Did you find…?” Moana began, and to her relief Tamatoa held up a pincer, Maui’s hook firmly in its grasp. “Yes! You’re the best!”

“Oh, I know.”

Getting ashore was mercifully quick: there was a small sandy spot at the base of the cliff, with a path that led right up towards it, and that was where Moana drove her boat. She jumped off onto the sand the same moment Tamatoa stepped out of the water and put the fishhook down.

“Okay, how do we get it to him? I was thinking I can try throwing it, but I’m not sure it’s such a good idea, because I can’t really see the top of the cliff. What if I miss and throw it back in the ocean? Or hit Maui? Or I could hit Hine-nui-te-pō, and I think that would only make her madder…”

“It’s all right. You’ve done enough for us,” Moana said, kneeling down to grasp the hook. “Stay here. I’ll take this to Maui.”

Tamatoa blinked. “Wait, what? Let’s pretend for a moment that’s not suicide, but there is no way you can drag that thing all the way up to--”

“Iti haere.”

“... Oh, right. You can if you cheat, I guess,” he muttered while Moana stood again, the hook now small enough to fit in her hand and mercifully easy to carry. “But my point that it’s suicide still stands. The moment Hine-nui-te-pō sees you--”

“No point in getting his hook back if I don’t give it to him,” Moana replied, and turned to run up the path that led to the top of the cliff, praying the gods yet again that she wouldn’t be too late.

She didn’t get very far.

“Wha-- no! Hey! Stop running!”

Moana let out a cry when a huge claw grabbed her by the waist and pulled her up, keeping her from going any further. She tried to squirm out of Tamatoa’s grasp, but her efforts were entirely fruitless. “Let me go!”

Tamatoa scoffed, holding her before his eyes. “To have you go die for sure? Nope. There is no way I’m letting you--” he began, and suddenly trailed off when Moana pointed at him with the hand wearing the bracelet. His eyes widened a fraction when she spoke in a hiss.

“Let me go. Now.”

“Human--”

“I’ll shrink you if I have to, and then you’d _never_ get to return your normal size should I die there. Good luck getting the bracelet back from Hine-nui-te-pō,” she said, causing him to recoil. For a moment he looked genuinely hurt, and she sighed. “I don’t want you to risk your life, but _I’m_ going. So _please,_ let me go. I don’t want to do this.”

For a moment, Tamatoa just stared at her, looking utterly confused. When he spoke again, it was in a whine. “I don’t _want_ you to get killed, babe,” he said, and Moana bit her lower lip.

“Believe me, that makes two of us. But I’ll never be able to live with myself if I do nothing and Maui dies,” she pleaded. Above them the sounds of the battle - shouts and drum-shattering shrieks, cries of defiance and the sound of shattering rocks - seemed louder than ever, covering the low rumble of thunder in the distance. “And besides,” she found herself adding, forcing herself to smile, “I made it past Te Ka, and everyone said it was impossible. I might just get lucky again.”

 _You’re not getting past this one by singing at her,_ Maui’s voice echoed somewhere in the back of her mind. But Tamatoa, who had no idea yet how she had exactly dealt with Te Ka, hesitated. Then, finally - and slowly, in a way that bespoke all of his reluctance - he put her down.

 _Thank you,_ Moana wanted to say, but every word she uttered was wasted breath, every moment she lingered wasted time. So she just nodded at him, turned, and ran as quickly as he could up the path. As she ran, the shrieks and the wind and her own rushing blood filling her ears, she failed to hear Tamatoa’s mumbled plea.

“... Please be back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone's wondering what the jab about a useless pair of limbs was about, [here you go](http://pengychan.tumblr.com/post/163032457785/so-can-i-eat-both-chicken-and-pig-are).


	16. Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter turned out longer than planned, but I couldn't find a good place to split it, so here's the whole thing!

As she aged, Tupuna found it harder and harder to get a decent night’s sleep. She’d fall asleep late, wake up early, and sometimes awaken in the middle of the night for no reason. However, there was one thing that never failed to ensure she’d sleep well: a full stomach.

Except that this time even that wasn’t working. Of course, the fact what happened to be filling it was the flesh of her only surviving offspring just might have something to do with it; she was jaded, but not entirely made of stone just yet. Plus, there still was that thought in her mind, circling endlessly like a very annoying and persistent seahorse.

_I can go home._

Only that she couldn’t really do it, could she? Not with all that was left of Tīaka - well, her carcass aside - unable to follow her to Lalotai and _not_ end up in someone’s belly within a day. Perhaps in a few centuries’ time, she thought, when he was big enough to fend for himself, she could go back and give him the choice to follow her or stay. Until then--

A sight scraping sound caused her to open her eyes. In the dim light given out by the bioluminescent algae growing on the cave’s walls, the could see Tamatoa peering out of the hole in the rock where Tīaka used to sleep into, and him with her. Now he had it all for himself, and yet he kept complaining. Never happy, was he?

“Gran?”

“What is it?”

“It’s too dark.”

Oh, for goodness’ sake. “Our kind thrives in the dark,” she said dryly, and lowered her head once again to sleep, shifting to lie more comfortably in her hole.

When Tīaka was alive she would use her bioluminescence to give out some light, because she just never seemed to bring herself to say no to him. Tupuna had been against it, of course, because she should stop coddling him if he was ever to grow into a proper crab, but her daughter hadn’t listened. She _never_ listened, and that had brought her to an early grave. She had never been supposed to be anywhere outside Lalotai. If she’d just paid heed to her words her son would have probably died, but she’d still be alive. She was young, and could have more offsprings. Why did she _have_ to get so fixated on this one? What was so special about him?

Unaware of her thoughts, Tamatoa spoke again, a whiny note in his voice. “I don’t like it.”

Tupuna scowled, but refused to move or even open her eyes. “Life if full of things you won’t like. Get over it.”

There were a few moments of silence, then he spoke again, his voice a tad smaller. “Can you do the thing?”

“The thing?”

“With the lights.”

“No.”

“Ma always--”

“I am not your mother.”

She expected a retort, but there was none: just a few moments of silence and then that small scraping noise as Tamatoa went back into the hole. Well, that was a relief: now she could finally go back to sleep. Or at least try to: yet again, sleep eluded her. After what felt like hours, she finally sighed and entirely gave up on it. She opened her eyes, thinking that maybe she could go out for a while to clear her head… and was taken aback to catch something out of the corner of her eye: a faint, flickering glow that was nothing like the algae’s bioluminescence, there one moment and gone the next.

_What…?_

Tupuna lifted her head, and peered down into Tamatoa’s hole in the ground. He’d taken his rubbish in it with him now that his mother was gone - his old seashell, some colourful pebbles, bits of mother-of-pearl - but even so, it looked incredibly empty without Tīaka in it. Tamatoa was huddled at the bottom of it, eyes screwed shut in concentration, his tiny body giving out flickering lights every now and then.

She sighed, but it was only partly exasperation. For the most part, it made her feel almost as empty as that hole. “You’re too young to control it. Stop trying.”

“No.”

“You’re wasting your energy.”

“I can do it!” Tamatoa protested, still scowling in concentration. The bioluminescence came back, brighter than before, and this time it stayed steady for several moments before flickering again and then going out. “See? I kept that up for three whole sec-- huh?” Tamatoa trailed off to blink up at her, clearly mesmerized by the sudden display of bioluminescence. Come to think of it, Tupuna had never used it in front of him; she’d never had a reason to. Not that she had a real reason to do it now, but somehow it seemed the right thing to do.

“There’s your light. Don’t get too used to it,” she muttered, settling back down in her sleeping spot. “Now slee-- wait, what are you doing?” she asked, taken aback, when she heard again that scraping sound, following by the skittering of four legs across the stony ground. She opened her eyes yet again to see Tamatoa getting in her hole and settling down next to her, head resting against her bioluminescent claw. He used to do that when sleeping next to his mother, too, and the realization caused Tupuna’s remark - _“What do you think you’re doing?”_ \- die in her throat. In the end she sighed, and rested her head down again.

“Don’t get used to it,” was all she finally repeated, getting no reply but a sleepy ‘hu-uh’. It seemed that trying to get his bioluminescence under control _had_ tired him out after all. Tupuna rolled her eyes and leaned her head down again, readying herself for yet another sleepless night.

They were both asleep within minutes

* * *

“Let me end you, Maui! You have nothing to fear! It will be just. Like. Falling. Asleep!”

Maui, who somehow had a few doubts over good old Hine’s description of what a _very_ bloody death would be like, had to jump off the side of the cliff to avoid yet another swipe. He barely managed not to plunge down on the sharp rocks below - something that wouldn’t have killed him, but would have definitely hurt - by holding onto the roots on some scrawny tree that had somehow managed to grow there. He hoisted himself back up and rolled out of the way just on time before another swipe tore the tree off the cliff and send it into the sea.

_Well, better the tree than me. Nevermind it will be me sooner or later, ‘cause I can’t keep this up for much longer._

Maui coughed, lifting himself up on one knee with some effort. He wondered where Moana was, if he’d somehow managed to recover his fishhook, if she was all right. The currents were terribly strong around Cape Reinga, and fraught with sharp rocks. How would she even keep her boat under control while trying to recover the hook from the depths of the ocean? Or would the Ocean itself give her some help? He could only hope it would, but even with its help it would be nearly _impossible_ for her to--

“MAUI!”

_Still haven’t learned, have you? Scratch that stupid word out of your vocabulary._

_Well, Hine-nui-te-pō is about to scratch us both out of existence. A slightly more pressing problem._

_Fair enough._

Moana’s cry hadn’t just caught Maui’s attention, of course. Hine-nui-te-pō had lifted her head to stare straight at her, hand frozen in mid-air. Moana was running towards them, as though she didn’t know she was _literally_ running towards death, and she seemed to be empty-handed: not even the spear to protect herself, and definitely no fishhook. What did she _think_ she was doing?

Hine-nui-te-pō seemed to be wondering the same, but, unlike Maui, she was clearly amused by the notion. A horrible smile spread on her face. “Have you lost your edge, Maui of the Men? Bringing in humans to help you, like there’s anything that they could do to against--”

Whatever she said next was entirely lost to Maui, because the next moment Moana stopped abruptly to throw something towards them, something so small Maui couldn’t make it out… until she lifted a hand, the one with the bracelet, to point it at the object she had just thrown.

Realization - now _that_ was smart - hit him moments before his fishhook, back to full size, fell heavily on the ground less than twenty meters from him, cracking the rocky ground. He bolted towards it one instant before Hine-nui-te-pō could even begin to understand what was going on.

Except that when she did, she acted faster than Maui had imagined she could. He didn’t see her grasping a side of the cliff, he didn’t see her breaking off a chunk of it, he didn’t see her throwing the boulder across the air - but he _did_ hear her roar and Moana’s warning cry, and realized a shadow had fallen over him one moment before it struck.

A stunning force hit Maui’s back, knocking all breath out of his lungs and pinning him down. He fell on his face, mere feet away from the fishhook, hardly able to breathe beneath the crushing weight. He tried to lift himself, to get the boulder off him, but to no avail - and the fishhook was just beyond his reach, no matter how far he stretched.

“Aaaaagh! Oh, come on!” he growled, and looked up. He could feel the ground shaking as Hine-nui-te-pō approached, clawing at the ground and dragging herself forward. For a moment he tried to imagine just how stretched the midsection had to be, with her feet still firmly planted before the entrance to the underworld, and it would have been funny if it wasn’t for the fact she was closing in to kill hi--

“Before you die,” she snarled, her voice horribly close, “you’ll watch your little friend go first.”

_NO!_

“Moana! Get away from here! RUN!” he screamed. He heard no reply, and all he could see looking up was Hine-nui-te-pō moving towards the spot where Moana had been standing. She was so focused on her that she paid no more mind to Maui… or to his hook. A swat of her hand would have been enough to throw it back into the ocean, a strong bite or two enough to destroy it, but she did neither of those things. The hook stayed where it was, just beyond Maui’s reach.

He stared at it and, as he listened to Hine-nui-te-pō’s rampage beginning anew with a new target, he braced his hands against the ground, starting to push with all of his might against the terrible weight on his back. There were shrieks of fury, the roar of the ocean below, the thundering noise of rocks and earth being struck with immensurable force, but he forced himself to pay no no more mind to it that he did to his aching arms, to the sweat falling down his face, to the grit under his palms.

And slowly, very slowly, that boulder began to shift.

* * *

Tamatoa realized he had been sort of expecting that annoying giant lizard to show up the instant he made his presence known with the most obviously calculated throat-clearing noise in history of throat-clearing noises.

_“A-hem.”_

Pilifeai was halfway out of the water, looking at him with a somewhat bored look on his face. “So, here you are. Not joining the action, are you?” he muttered, glancing up towards the cliff the human had just disappeared up. In the distance, they could clearly hear Hine-nui-te-pō’s screeches, the Maui shouting something, the sounds of terrible blows raining down. “Letting a tiny little human risk her skin. I can’t say I’m surprised, but--” he began, only to trail off when Tamatoa turned to full face him and spoke, his voice flat.

“Pilifeai. Can I stop you right there and tell you exactly what I think is about to happen?”

“... By all means.”

“I’m going to tell you that I’ve already done my part, and then I’ll add that I don’t see _you_ rushing to the rescue.”

“That does sound like something you’d say, yes. But for the record--”

“You’ll point out that of course you’re neither stupid nor suicidal,” Tamatoa cut him off. “There may or may not be a snide remark on how I am at least _one_ of those things--”

“There would be.”

“... And then you’re going to point out that you are not their friend. Emphasis on that ‘you’, implying that _I_ am. How am I doing so far?”

Pilifeai tilted his head on one side. “You have me down to a t, actually. I am impressed.”

“Thanks.”

“Can you _also_ guess what the bottom line is?”

A sigh. “That I’m going to go after her to help and probably die in the process.”

“Well put. So, what _are_ you wa--” Pilifeai began, but Tamatoa didn’t bother to stay long enough to hear the rest of the sentence: he already knew exactly he’d say, anyway.

He sure hoped the lizard would enjoy the show, because one thing was for sure, whatever the outcome: he was _never_ going to pull that stunt a second time.

* * *

All right, so plan A has failed. That was all right; it had happened before. The real problem there was that there had never been a plan B.

_There is now. Keep her busy. Maui can get that boulder off himself. Buy him time._

That was easier said than done, especially when she had nothing to hold up, nothing to say that could tame the goddess’ fury. All she could do to avoid being smothered was to dart to her left just on time, and then to throw herself into a long, narrow crack on the ground that must have been caused by Hine-nui-te-pō’s own onslaught.

And just on time, too. The goddess slammed her hand down on second after she’d disappeared into it, falling heavily on the rocks below. She turned to see a mouth - she had _mouths_ on the palms of hands? - snapping at the air, obsidian teeth grinding against each other less than a couple of feet above her face. A smell of rotting seaweed filled her nostrils.

_She can reach in here any moment. I need to move._

Moana crawled backwards to the other end of the crack, rocks scraping the palms of her hands and forearms, but she could barely pay any mind to that: all she could stare at were huge fingers reached into the crevice, plunging into the spot where she’d been only moments earlier. They found nothing, and flexed, breaking the ground before running down the crack - thankfully, not towards her. She couldn’t see her, Moana realized, and thus she didn’t know which way she’d gone. She would find her eventually, but if only she could get out of there without Hine-nui-te-pō spotting her, if only she could reach Maui’s hook and push it just a couple of feet closer to him…!

_It’s now or never. Go!_

The crevice was little over a meter deep, and getting out of it was a matter of moments. With Hine-nui-te-pō clawing at the ground some distance away, Moana sprinted towards the boulder trapping Maui. I would take her only a few more moments to reach him, only a another--

“OH NO YOU WON’T!”

A huge hand crashed down on the ground between them, throwing Moana back along with a rain of pebbles and debris. She hit the ground violently and rolled a few meters across it, some sharp rocks cutting into the skin of her legs and shoulders. When she finally stopped, her head was spinning so hard it took her a terrible effort to lift herself on one knee. All noises sounded somewhat distant, as though she was listening to them underwater. Maui’s screams were coming from so far away… but Hine-nui-te-pō’s voice, on the other hand, was so much closer.

_“This ends now.”_

Moana turned to see the huge mouths on the goddess’ hands coming down towards her, obsidian teeth gleaming black, the sheer mass of Hine-nui-te-pō blotting out the sun as her shriek seemed to make even the ocean still.

“MOANA!”

She heard Maui's scream, but she knew with utmost certainty that he was too far away, that he would never free himself on time, and did the only thing she could do: lifted her arms in a pitiful last attempt at a defense and closed her eyes, waiting for the impact and for the end.

_CRACK._

The impact came, causing the ground around her to shake and her to lose her balance, but the end did not. Moana opened her eyes the same moment she fell on her back, the goddess’ furious screech filling her ears, and looked up expecting to see those obsidian teeth again. Instead, for the second time that day, she found herself staring at the underside of a massive carapace.

_Tamatoa._

Mind still reeling, she had barely enough time to make sense of what she was seeing before she heard him grunting, and legs scrambling to keep a hold onto the rocky ground as Hine-nui-te-pō began shoving him back, cursing and shrieking so loud Moana could barely hear Tamatoa’s panicked shout.

“Human! Get away from there!”

She did, running away from beneath him before his legs could give in, and turned back to finally see exactly what was going on, head spinning. Tamatoa had grasped both of Hine-nui-te-pō’s wrists with his pincers before she could crush her, and was struggling to hold on, to keep the sharp teeth on her palms from touching him. Something thick and black - blood? Could gods bleed? - dripped from the her wrists into the ground; some fell onto a patch of grass, causing it to wither and die within instants. She heard Maui grunting some distance away, and that caused her mind to snap back into focus.

_Maui’s hook. If I can push it back towards him--_

Before she could even finish that thought, Hine-nui-te-pō caught sight of her own blood. For an instant she stilled, then her gaze shifted back on Tamatoa, and her unnaturally large mouth opened in… was that a snarl? A smile? Why would she--

“NO! LEAVE THEM ALONE! IT’S ME YOU WANT--”

Maui’s scream came too late, and was covered by yet another drum-shattering shriek before the goddess lowered her head on Tamatoa, who didn’t even have enough time to cry out. The next moment the gigantic maw clamped down, and Moana stared in horror as those teeth sank through Tamatoa’s shell with a sickening _crunch_ that was covered, only a moment later, by a strangled scream. He held onto her wrists, but his legs buckled and he fell heavily  on the ground, Hine-nui-te-pō’s teeth still in him as the goddess bit deeper. He screamed again, and it was one of the most horrible sounds Moana had ever heard. His pincers let go of her, falling limply on the ground, and yet she wouldn’t let him go.

“No! Let him go! LET GO!” Moana screamed, and did the only thing she could think of doing: she grabbed a stone and threw it, as hard as she could, against her. She may as well have thrown a handful of sand for all the damage it dealt her, but it did get her attention. Hine-nui-te-pō tore herself away from Tamatoa’s limp form, causing something - chunks of shell she’d just torn off, bits and pieces of gold covered in blue blood - to fall on the ground. She looked down at Moana and smiled, blood running down her chin as well.

“It’s too late for him. My bite is death. You may join him if you wi--”

“CHEE-HOO!”

A huge boulder, the same one she’d trapped Maui with, suddenly flew through the air to slam again the side of her head. The goddess let out a cry, and the next moment something else struck her - Maui, so fast he almost looked like a bolt of lighting. She was thrown back and he landed on the ground between her and Moana, fishhook in his hand.

“Moana! Get away from here!”

“But you--”

“I’ll keep her busy! Take Tamatoa and go! Chee-hoo!”

As Maui’s fight with Hine-nui-te-pō resumed, Moana ran back towards Tamatoa, stepping over bits and pieces of his scattered treasure in the process. He wasn’t dead, thank the ancestors: he was trying to stand up, claws digging into the ground, but managed to lift himself just a fraction before falling back down, his breathing coming down in gasps. Blood was running down the ruin of his shell, and he grimaced in obvious pain before he tried to get up again.

“No, stay down - stay down!” Moana called out. “Iti haere.”

Once he’d been shrunk she could see him from above, and for a moment she wished she hadn’t looked. His shell was a mangled mess that made the wound the Kakamora had gouged on the back of his neck look like a tiny scratch by comparison. She could only hope those fangs hadn’t pierced too deep into his flesh as well. Tamatoa blinked at her somewhat blearily, as though trying to put her on focus, when she crouched next to him to pick him up. His blood felt sticky and cold. “It hurts. It… I… She broke through my shell,” he all but whined. He didn’t add ‘how dare she!’, but he was obviously thinking that. “I thought… she couldn’t do that,” he choked out, and Moana had to fight back a lump in her throat.

_Of course you knew she could do it._

“It will be all right,” she heard herself saying. “I’ll get you away from here and--”

“She _bit_ me,” Tamatoa cut her off, something akin to terror making it into his voice.

“You’ll be fine. You heal quickly and look, if you get scars you can tell everyone--” she began, only to trail off when Tamatoa squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.

“I won’t heal,” he managed, his voice strained, and Moana felt as though her blood had frozen in her veins.

 _It’s too late for him,_ Hine-nui-te-pō had said. _My bite is death._

“No, no, no - you’ll be fine, let’s just-- Tamatoa? Wake up! Please!”

She was supposed to get up, she was supposed to run and take him with her somewhere safe, but all of a sudden she couldn’t move. Moana found herself holding onto Tamatoa’s unconscious form, looking at the trinkets scattered on the ground, many of them stained with blue blood. His treasure, she thought numbly, he’d only wanted his treasure back. It was something so simple, it retrospect. He didn’t have to follow her, he shouldn’t have followed her - none of them should be there. If only they’d known earlier that the Manaia--

_And man, wasn’t Hine-nui-te-pō angry when they vanished!_

… Wait, Moana thought, wait just a moment.

 _If you’re alive, she kills you and_ then _lets you through. Unless you’re the Manaia, of course. They got on well - she chose them as the messenger and all._

What if--

“AAAAGH!”

Maui’s scream, followed by a crashing sound and a cry of triumph, caused Moana to recoil and look up. Maui had been thrown on the ground again, but this time he hadn’t lost his grip on the hook, and he was back on his feet the next moment.

“Moana! Get away from here! Now!” he cried out, and turned back towards Hine-nui-te-pō - but he was unsteady, hardly able to hold the hook up in front of him, and Moana knew he wouldn’t be able to withstand another attack. The goddess could tell, too, for she gave a horrible laugh before she lifted her arms to strike again, and that was the last Moana could take. She stood, still holding onto Tamatoa, and ran between her and Maui without thinking.

The scream that left her came to her lips without much thought, either.

“WE HAVE FOUND THE MANAIA!”

The cry of triumph that had filled the world cut off abruptly, and suddenly there was only silence, as though time had stilled. Hine-nui-te-pō stilled, too, her hands stopping in mid-hair before she could delivered the blow. She blinked down at her and she seemed, all of a sudden, nothing sort of stunned. So was Moana in seeing _that_ move had worked, really.

“... You have?” Hine-nui-te-pō spoke slowly, eyes moving from Moana to Maui. From his part, Maui turned to look at Moana, lowering his hook slowly.

“... We did?”

“Yes! I mean, no - _he_ did!” she added quickly, lifting up Tamatoa. He was still and limp, but still breathing, thank the gods. “He found the Manaia. They’re trapped, but we can free them! Let us go, and we will - just _please,_ don’t let him die.”

Slowly, Hine-nui-te-pō lowered her arms. Her eyes were narrowed in clear suspicion. “Why should I believe the helper of a trickster?” she asked, but the fact she was willing to listen spoke volumes on how much she _wanted_ to believe the Manaia had been found.

Moana bowed her head. “I am so sorry it has come to this. I know you have no reason to believe me. We tried to stop Maui from coming here, but he went off on his own.”

A scoff. “I am not in the slightest surprised,” Hine-nui-te-pō muttered.

“Hey now, it was to keep her out of harm’s way!”

“Didn’t _that_ work out brilliantly,” the goddess remarked, causing Maui to fall in a somewhat grudging silence before she turned back to Moana. Her fury seemed to have faded quickly, but there was a note of warning in her voice that said clearly that it could flare up just as fast. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I am willing to give your words any credit. Where would they be?”

“They’re patrolling the coasts of the Taniwha’s islands,” Moana said, causing Maui to blink.

“What do you mean? That’s the giant headless jer-- oh. _Oh._ Those sons of a--”

“Yes, exactly,” Moana cut him off, and turned back to Hine-nui-te-pō. “The Taniwha took their head. They’re bound to their will now. But if we give it back to them, like we gave the heart back to Te Fiti, we could-- er…” Moana flinched back when Hine-nui-te-pō suddenly lowered herself to observe her closely, those obsidian black eyes so close she could see her reflection in them. Even her eyelashes looked sharp, making them look much like mouths.

“So _you_ are the one the Ocean chose to give Te Fiti her heart back,” she mused, tilting her head on one side. “Seems like a more sensible choice than when it decided to save that waste of space over there. Making a habit out of fixing the trickster’s messes, aren’t you? I thought you’d be… bigger.”

“Well, I helped her,” Maui supplied.

“Absolutely nobody asked,” Hine-nui-te-pō replied drily, and straightened herself again. “You found the Manaia, and yet you didn’t think of simply freeing them to give your message to the departed?” she asked, doubt plain in her voice.

“By the time we found out, Maui had already left to come here. That’s why we tried to catch up with him,” Moana said, then allowed herself a small shrug. “I’m afraid he’s not the brightest,” she added, causing Maui to give her an unimpressed look and Hine-nui-te-pō to snort out something that sounded much like a laugh.

“Hah! Good thing your friend has more sense than you,” she said, glancing back at Maui. “I should still kill--”

“But I need him to free the Manaia,” Moana said quickly. At that point she could only hope that Hine-nui-te-pō’s wish to have the Manaia back would mean more to her than her desire to end Maui. She couldn’t leave the Underworld unguarded, which meant she would have to rely on someone else to free the Manaia… and that someone had to be them. Moana could tell, from the expression that crossed her features, that she was coming exactly to the same conclusion. “If you forgive his disrespect--”

“I am not a forgiving goddess. And I call that idiocy.”

“... That, too. If you let us go, I promise on my ancestors that I will free the Manaia. But I can’t do it on my own. I’ll need Maui’s help, and… and his,” she added, kneeling to put Tamatoa down on the ground. He let out a whimper when she did, but he stayed unconscious. “He only got mixed up in this to help us. Can you… keep him from dying?”

Hine-nui-te-pō stared down at Tamatoa for only a moment before scoffing. “He dared shed divine blood - _my_ blood - and now I’m supposed to help him?”

“It was only to protect me,” Moana pleaded. “The fault is mine.”

“Hmph. I couldn’t help even if I wished to. The gift of life is not mine to give,” she said. “What I give his death. When my teeth pierced his flesh, I doomed him. I may as well have disemboweled him.”

“There is someone who can help,” Maui spoke up. He had crouched down to look more closely at Tamatoa, and now he picked him up with one arm before standing again, turning to nod at Moana. He looked grim, but determined. “She can’t save him, but Te Fiti can.”

A scoff. “If he makes it to her alive, yes. But he will not,” Hine-nui-te-pō stated, matter-of-factly. “A demigod like yourself might survive my bite long enough, perhaps. If you’d like to try, I can still--”

“Uh, no. Thanks. I’m good,” Maui cut her off, causing her to shrug.

“Either way, this one is no demigod, and he will not make it to Te Fiti,” she added, and gave an odd smile. “He’s not long for this world, but it will be a painful death. It would be kinder to end him now. His entire race is already in my realm; he’s the only one missing. But you’ll still try to take him to Te Fiti, I’d wager. You’re pig-headed well past the point of idiocy.”

Moana stood, if a bit shakily. “Does that mean you’re letting us go?” she dared ask. The goddess of death smiled down at her with sharp teeth, a smile that did not reach her eyes.

“Make no mistake, mortal - I expect you to free the Manaia from their imprisonment in exchange, whether or not your friend lives. I will not be held responsible for what he’s brought upon himself.”

“I… I understand.”

Hine-nui-te-pō turned to Maui. “As much as I’d love to have you in my realm where you belong, I’ll admit the Manaia is more important to me than your miserable little soul. But if you do not free the messenger,” she added, leaning forward, “your friend here will pay the price. Her life span is short; her soul will come to my realm one day, as you’re all too aware. If you do not keep your promise, I’ll have eternity to make her wish she had never been conceived. And you’ll know, every waking moment, that you are responsible. Is that clear?”

Maui nodded. “Crystal. The Manaia will be freed and back where they belong soon.”

“You had better not be lying. Now go, before I--”

“Thank you.”

Moana’s words caused Hine-nui-te-pō to trail off and blink down at her. Then, slowly, that unnatural smile spread on her face again. “Well, this is new. No one ever thanks death.”

“Such a thankless jo--” Maui began, only to trail off when Moana elbowed him in the side as hard she she could.

“He’s really thankful, too!” she said quickly. “And he’s about to apologize.”

“I’m what n-- ow! Hey!”

“Yes you are,” Moana half-whispered and half-snarled, her grip on his ear strong enough to force him into a bow. That caused the goddess to give another raspy laugh.

“I have no use for forced apologies. Not that I do not appreciate to see him bowing,” she said, and turned her eyes to Tamatoa. In his shrunken form, he fit easily in the crook of Maui’s arm. “If you’re so determined to give your friend a chance, leave at once. He’ll be dead come dusk, but I suppose hoping against hope is in human nature. You’re still human at heart, trickster. And besides,” she added, and smile again. “I am a fickle thing. You may just want to be well away from here when I change my mind about smothering you both.”

She didn’t need to say it twice.

* * *

“Okay, run this by me again - he came after the boat to tell us about the Manaia?”

“Yes. He realized after we left, when he tried to go take the rest of his treasure. He… tried to warn us.”

Maui let out a groan, maneuvering the boat towards Te Fiti and taking advantage of every gust of wind to go as fast as possible. “And I’d just flown off. Gods, I can’t do a _thing_ right. I tried to keep you out of danger and look what happened.”

 _You couldn’t know,_ Moana wanted to say, but she found she didn’t have enough energy to: she was tired to the bone, and her entire body hurt. She just sat on the floor, with Tamatoa on her lap. Despite what Hine-nui-te-pō has said, he had lived to dusk - and, midway through the night, he still breathed. She had been right on one thing, though: it had to be painful. He had never regained consciousness, but the way he shifted, whimpered and shuddered from time to time made that much abundantly clear.

She kept washing his wounds with salt water, hoping that would somehow help them closing, but of course it was useless: she could see the wounds were trying, and failing, to heal. Now his bioluminescence was going on and off, too, flickering out of control while his limbs twitched and his breathing came out in gasps. Moana had tried scratching that one spot at the base of his eyestalks, the one that never failed to soothe him, but with no result.

_It would be kinder to end him now._

“Do you really think he can make it?” Moana found herself asking. Maui let out a long sigh, and nothing more. Pua glanced back and forth between them, looking rather saddened as well, and Moana tried to swallow a lump in her throat. “You don’t, do you?”

Maui glanced at her for a moment before turning away, looking up at the stars for direction. He was battered and bruised, too, but kept claiming he was well enough to sail. “Well,” was all he finally said, his voice oddly weak, “if that helps at all, I am usually wrong. And besides, he’s fighting it. So we can’t really give up without a fight either, right?” he added, and made a noticeable effort to grin at her. “Enough with the long face. Show me your _warrior_ one. Ha!”

The face he made was more ridiculous than scary, and Moana found herself snorting out a laugh almost against her own will before making a face herself. _“Rah!”_

“There, much better!” Maui exclaimed, but his grin was already fading after a few moments. He drew in a deep breath, and looked away. “Thanks,” he finally said. “For coming after me.”

Moana smiled. “That’s what friends are fo--” she began, only to trail off at a sudden splashing sound to her left - which was immediately followed by a bunch of bananas suddenly landing in the middle of the boat with a thud, causing Pua to squeal and Heihei to squawk from the hold.

_… Really now?_

Both Moana and Maui turned slowly to their left. Swimming alongside the boat, his head just above the surface, Pilifeai glanced back at them. “I, uh. I remembered the crab complaining about being out of food while you were heading to Cape Reinga. I figured you didn’t exactly stop to stock up before leaving again, and. Well. Here you go.”

“Ah,” Moana said, eyes shifting between the bunch of bananas and the giant lizard. “I mean… thank you.”

“What’s the catch?” Mui asked, but Pilifeai entirely ignored him and peered at Moana.

“So, uh. How’s the crab?”

She glanced down at Tamatoa, biting her lower lip. “... Not too well,” she found herself saying, “but alive.”

Pilifeai let out a snort that _might_ have sounded almost like a sigh of relief. “Good. I mean, I’m not surprised. This crab is too stupid to know when to quit,” he muttered, and went back underwater before either Moana or Maui could say anything at all. They blinked at the ripples for a few moments before exchanging a glance.

“Sometimes I wonder about that lizard,” Maui muttered.

“Sometimes,” Moana repeated, causing him to snort out a laugh before he turned his full attention on sailing.

“I guess he hasn’t had enough of watching us yet. Well, at least he did bring food. Eat something and try to rest, okay?”

Moana had just reached out to grab a banana when she felt Tamatoa twitching once on her lap, and she instinctively held tightly onto him, careful not to put pressure on his wounds. She knew there wasn’t much point in keeping him warm - she didn’t think he even _needed_ warmth - but she hoped that somehow, even if unconscious, he’d be able to feel it and know that someone was there for him.

“We’re here. We’re doing all we can. Please, hang in there.”

* * *

Everything was dark and everything hurt. That was all he knew: that his back hurt, his head hurt, his limbs hurt, his very core hurt. He didn’t know what had happened to him. He didn’t--  
_want to_  
\--remember.

There was something - memories and voices and distant sounds - but he couldn’t tell how much of it came from the outside world and how much from the nothingness he seemed to have fallen into. It was like deep, dark chasm.

_It’s too dark!_

_Our kind thrives in the dark._

_I don’t like it!_

_...._

_Gran? Gran!_

He’d tried to call out, but he’d failed to make a sound. He’d tried to use his bioluminescence to make some light, but to no avail. Any attempt at moving was searing agony, far worse than losing a limb had been - _he’d lost a limb at some point, hadn’t he?_ \- and he tried to be still, but from time to time there was a spasm and he couldn’t help it.

Most of the time, the pain was like the continuous throb of an infected wound. Maybe that was just it. He’d been wounded, hadn’t he? He’d been mangled. _Something_ had mangled him, but his mind refused to remember what it had been.

 _If they catch you,_ his Gran always told him about humans, _they’ll pull you out of the shell, crack you open and eat you up._

That couldn’t be, he was too big now, too strong, his shell too tough. But something had broken it. Something had cracked him open. Maybe he’d just dreamed he was big and tough. Maybe he was still--  
_Tinytoa_ _  
_ \--a runt in a fancy shell, so vulnerable to everything his mother had to--

A sudden spasm caused his limbs to flex; the flare of pain reached him in his unconsciousness, and he let out a choked out gasp. Someone above him was speaking, words distant and barely audible.

_Do you really think he can make it?_

_It would be kinder to end him now,_ someone had said, someone Tamatoa dared not recall. _His entire race is already in my realm; he’s the only one missing._

_All that mess for you to be the last one left? Talk about a waste._

_You wouldn’t have lasted a week on your own, even out of Lalotai, if I weren’t here to look after you._

_She should have stayed in Lalotai._

_Waste._

_It would be kinder to end him now._

_He’ll be dead come dusk._

Oh Gods, was it dusk yet? He couldn’t take much more than that. It hurt too much. It was too dark. He was alone and he didn’t want to be. If he died, at least he’d be with--

_We’re here. We’re doing all we can. Please, hang in there._

Someone was speaking again, somewhere above him. It was a voice he ought to know, but he found he couldn’t place it. Still he could feel, if faintly and through a veil of pain, that someone was holding onto him.

_Please, hang in there._

He couldn’t think of a single reason why he should hang on, but then again he couldn’t really think of anything but the pain, not even to remember what had exactly happened to him. Maybe there were reasons why he should hang on, after all, and he was just forgetting them. Maybe they were worth finding out.

 _Hang in there_.

He clung to the voice, and tried to do just that.

* * *

“We’re almost there! Hey! _Moana!_ Wake up!”

Maui’s shout caused Moana to wake up with a start, eyes snapping open only to see Maui’s face a mere couple of inches from him, grinning at her. It startled her enough to pull back and hit her head against the mast, but he spoke before she could ever say ‘ouch’.

“Guess where we are!” he exclaimed, and moved aside to show her exactly what lay before them some distance away. It was a familiar sight, wonderfully so: a green, green island she’d left behind not too long ago.

“Te Fiti!”

All traces of sleepiness gone, Moana probably would have jumped on her feet if not for a weight on her lap - the very reason why they were there. She immediately looked down, heart beating somewhere in his throat. “Is he…?”

“The crab lives!” Maui proclaimed, picking up Tamatoa’s unconscious form. He was motionless, but still breathing in gasps. “He’s tougher than I thought - just don’t tell him I said that. He’s come so far, so he’d _better_ not go and die on us some ten minutes away from safety. Want to take the rudder for the rest of the way? I’m knackered.”

Moana laughed, relief making her feel suddenly lighter, and grabbed the rudder. “You bet,” she said, and glanced over her shoulder while directing the boat towards the shore. She wasn’t at all surprised to see the sun reflecting on blood-red scales as something swam after them, not too deep below the surface. She turned back to the island. “Are you sure Te Fiti can help?”

“Positive. May be best if you ask her, though,” Maui said, sitting down with Tamatoa cradled in the crook of his arm. “My last attempt at nicely asking for a goddess’ favor didn’t go too well.”

“I noticed,” Moana muttered. “By the way, I’ll beat you with my oar later.”

“Is that necessary?”

“I promised Tamatoa I would. Also, I kinda want to. For a moment I really thought I’d never get to do it again.”

The remark caused Maiu to let out a noise somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “... Fair enough,” he said. “I’m pretty glad you’re still around to smack me a bit, too.”

“Well, that ought to be a fun scene,” Pilifeai’s voice came from somewhere behind them. Maui didn’t bother turning to look.

“No one invited you to watch, lizard,” he retorted, and glanced down at Tamatoa. Even while focused on sailing, Moana could see the way he stared at the mangled shell, his fingers tracing the contours of the wound.

 _If should have been me,_ Moana thought, guilt gnawing at her, and she knew Maui was thinking exactly the same thing when he spoke again.

“You know,” he finally said, “don’t tell him when he wakes up, but if he decides to subject me to another terrible song, I won’t complain _too_ much.”

Moana smiled and opened her mouth to speak, but someone else got there first. Pilifeai. “I’ll let him know you said it,” he muttered, causing Maui to roll his eyes.

“Can you go back to _silently_ following, like every self-respecting creep?”

“I’m no creep, demigod! I am simply a spectator--”

“... Whom no one invited.”

“You should be thankful I was there to help out!”

“Help out? That’s rich! Tell me _one_ useful thing--”

As the conversation turned into a full-fledged banter, Moana stifled a sigh with a shake of her head. _These kids,_ she thought, but of course one voice was missing from the bickering. She let her gaze fall back on Tamatoa; one could have thought he was sleeping, if not for the wound and laboured breathing.

 _Keep breathing. We’re almost there,_ Moana thought, and kept sailing as fast as he could, towards Te Fiti.

* * *

On second thought, maybe they should have thought of getting the pig into the hold _before_ they reached the shores of Te Fiti and roused her.

The chicken hadn’t reacted at all to the island quite literally coming to life, the Goddess of Creation towering high above them, because of course the chicken was either an idiot or secretly had the heart of a warrior. The pig, on the other hand, had let out a shriek high enough to make even Te Fiti recoil before he turned, ran off into the sea… and then proceeded to swim towards the horizon.

“Next time, the pets stay home,” Maui had muttered before he went after the pig, leaving Moana to explain Te Fiti the situation. When he returned, she seemed to be almost done explaining what had brought them there.

“... And we’re really sorry we woke you up from your, uhm, nap--”

“Slumber.”

“What?”  
Coming to stand before her, the pig firmly in his grasp - for now at least, because seawater made him slippery and he wouldn’t _stay still_ \- Maui shrugged. “Gods don’t _nap._ They slumber.”

“And the difference is…?”

“Only that it sounds more dignified,” Maui said, and glanced up at Te Fiti, who was glancing down at him - and the squealing pig - with a look of mild amusement, mild confusion, and more than a touch of concern. Moana must have told him _exactly_ what had happened, because he got the message loud and clear.

 _Again?,_ her gaze told him, and Maui could only shrug somewhat sheepishly.

_Yep. Same crap as always._

Te Fiti sighed with a sound like wind through the leaves, shaking her head, and Maui decided to take that as his clue to take a few steps back, get the pig into the hold, and let Moana do the talking. When he approached again, Te Fiti was once again focused on Moana… and on the motionless form in her arms.

“... And we know you are the only one who can help him,” Moana was saying, kneeling down to place Tamatoa on the sand. One of his limbs twitched, but aside from that he stayed entirely motionless. “It’s entirely our fault he’s hurt. If you can save him, I… we’ll do anything.”

Te Fiti looked down at her for a few moments, then she smiled and reached down, taking Tamatoa in her hands. She lifted him to before her eyes, and Maui clenched his jaw when he saw the worried look that showed on her face after a few moments. Beside him, Moana was holding her breath; on his chest, Mini Maui was biting his nails to the quick.

After a few long, nerve-wracking moments - because Maui didn’t know what they could do if even she couldn’t help, he really had no idea - Te Fiti finally looked down at them. She did not shake her head, to his relief, but neither she nodded. She just looked, a Maui, once again, knew what she meant: that she would heal him, but that she couldn’t promise it would be enough. She couldn’t be certain they’d made it to her on time.

“Even if it’s just a chance, we’ll take it. I mean, he’s tough,” he said, and found it in himself to grin. “He made it so far. I’m sure it will be enough.”

Te Fiti nodded, and closed her hands around Tamatoa to bring them up to her mouth. She blew in her cupped hands - after all, what spells _life_ more than breathing? - and opened her hands again, lowering Tamatoa on the ground. He was still unconscious, his shell still a mangled mess, but Maui could see easily that the wounds beneath it had closed, something they’d failed to do despite his body’s best efforts to repair the damage.

Beside him, Moana let out a sigh of relief and immediately went to kneel over him. “Thank you,” she said, looking up at Te Fiti. “If there is anything we can do to repay you--” she began, but the goddess silenced her with a smile and a shake of her head. Maui, who’d been preparing himself to offer his hook in exchange - not that he’d admit as much aloud - breathed out a sigh of relief.

“What she said,” he finally said, a bit awkwardly. “Thanks. And, uh…” he paused when Te Fiti looked at him, one eyebrow raised. “Aaaall right. Yes. I did. Learned my lesson. No more messing around with wrathful-- I mean, the laws of nature. Yes. That.”

Te Fiti’s eyes shifted to Moana.

“... I promise I’ll hit him with my oar if he tries,” she said, causing Te Fiti to nod approvingly - really, now? Was she done promising everybody she’d beat him up? - before she leaned back down, to return to her slumber. She’d awaken someday, of course, when someone called her out of it or simply when she felt like it.

Now they could only hope Tamatoa would awaken from his.


	17. Mending

“... And so I thought, ‘wait a moment, I never checked out this place!’, and gave it a go. It looked like there was nothing, but then I noticed something shiny - I can see anything sparkling from a mile away - and further on there was this cave, with crystals everywhere--”

“How old are you?”

“... So of course I-- Huh?” Tamatoa blinked, suddenly yanked out of his tale by the sudden and definitely unexpected question. “What does that have to do with anything? Have you been listening to me at all?”

Leaning down in the sand, hands folded behind his head and gaze fixed on the stars, Maui didn’t bother answering his question any more than Tamatoa had answered his. “Three thousand years?” he guessed instead.

“Er… About three and a half, I guess?” Tamatoa ventured, frowning. Come to think of it he’d been acting kind of odd during that visit, like his mind wasn’t really there.

Unaware of his thoughts, Maui let out a hum. “That’s about it for me, too.”

“That’s… nice, I guess? I’m pretty sure I was an only child, though, so if you think you have a long lost twin--” Tamatoa began, only to trail off when Maui laughed. It wasn’t the usual laugh, though; it was far less heartfelt, with a bitterness to it that didn’t escape him at all.

“Hah! I don’t think we look alike enough, but I might have had siblings, who knows? Kids my parents didn’t throw at sea,” he added before falling silent for a full minute. Tamatoa had enough sense not to say anything - he knew it was a sore spot, of course, how could it not be? - and Maui eventually resumed speaking. “If there were any, they’re long gone by now while I’ll keep on living forever, unless something kills me. Funny, isn’t it? If they’d kept me I’d have stayed human, and I’d be dead now. Human lives are so short.”

Nothing in his voice or posture suggested what he’d said was even remotely funny, and Tamatoa didn’t think it was very amusing, either.

 _If we’d stayed in Lalotai,_ his Gran’s voice echoed in his mind, _you’d have died within days._

Except that his mother and grandmother had _meant_ to save him. Maui’s mortal parents had wanted him gone. “... Are you all right, man?” Tamatoa found himself asking, settling down in the sand. He already knew that he was not, because that kind of talk wasn’t like Maui at all, but he didn’t know what else he could say. Maui shrugged, eyes still fixed on the sky above.

“Yeah. Just missed out on a couple of friends’ passing,” he said vaguely, then, “how long does your kind live?”

To be honest, Tamatoa wasn’t sure. The only other giant crab he’d ever really known was his grandmother; she hadn’t told him that detail, and he’d never really dared to ask her age. He only knew she’d been old, a great deal more than he was now, and likely still had a few more centuries or even thousands of years left in her when the underwater volcanic eruption had quite literally cooked her alive. It had made her easier to chew.

“Well, a lot longer than human, for sure,” he finally said. “Gran was a _lot_ older than me. Like, at least three times as old? Would make sense, being my grandma and all. I’m pretty sure I’m young, man. You still have a lot of time to enjoy my presence,” he added with a grin, pointing at himself with a claw and causing Maui to snort out a laugh.

“I feel so lucky,” he muttered, and finally lifted himself up on his elbows to look at him, tearing his gaze off the sky. “So, you were saying how you got those crystals?”

“Huh? Oh! Right! So, I got to this cave…” Tamatoa resumed his tale with no small amount of relief, but knowing deep down that his audience wasn’t _really_ interested. When Maui came up with the suicidal idea of sneaking past Hine-nui-te-pō to win immortality for mankind, not too long after that night, Tamatoa was plenty worried… but only slightly surprised.

* * *

“I still can’t believe she let us go. How did you know it would work?”

“I didn’t. I just figured that she’d want to have a lost friend back more than anything else. I mean, who wouldn’t?”

“... Fair enough,” Maui sighed, and turned to glance at Tamatoa, who was resting on the sand by the fire. His somber expression turned slightly graver. “Still no sign of waking up,” he muttered.

“But he’s not shifting anymore, so... I don’t think he’s in pain.”

“Yeah, thanks to Te Fiti. Even if he doesn’t make it, at least there’s that. He’s not hurting.”

“So he could just… not wake up?”

It was the same question Moana had wanted to ask, but it had come from someone else entirely. Pilifeai was halfway into the ocean, munching what looked much like the remains of a shark, though he didn’t come too close to the fire they had started to keep warm and cook themselves some fish. Maui replied to his question with a nod, through a mouthful of said fish.

“Pretty much. Te Fiti has done what she could, but even her powers are limited over those of another goddess. Whether he makes it or not is up to him now. Good news is that, if he does make it, he’ll be virtually immortal.”

Moana blinked. “... He’ll be what now?”

“Hey, you heard me. He would have literally survived the bite of death - that’s a big deal. I mean, if someone cuts his head or something, he will still die. But if he lives to tell this story, he won’t get any older than he is now.”

“So it’s basically death or immortality?”

“Yep. Crabby never really settled for the middle ground, did he? Go big or go home.”

Moana bit her lower lip, and reached to place a hand on Tamatoa’s back. Normally his heartbeat would have been impossible to detect through the shell, but with much of it gone she could press a couple of fingers on the soft tissue beneath - and sure enough there it was, slow but regular.

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

Silently begging for it not to stop, Moana kept her hand on his back - and within moments he felt the weight of someone else’s hand on her own shoulder. “We’ve done all we could,” Maui said, and she nodded.

“I know. I just… really hope he makes it.”

“Well, makes two of us. I was never much of a fan of friends dying,” Maui said, and the clear bitterness in his voice caused her to turn to him. He looked back at her with a brave attempt at a grin, but it turned into a grimace soon enough. “You know, dying is a thing lots of mortals do. Of old age if they’re lucky. But I _don’t_ grow any older, so I’ve seen… more than a few people leaving.”

_… Oh._

Moana hadn’t really paused to wonder why Maui had tried to win immortality for humans, enraging the Goddess of Death for the first time and nearly being killed himself in the process, but now it all made sense. Once grown and wielding the hook gifted to him by the gods, Maui had returned to men seeking their acceptance. He had received their adoration, and likely the friendship of many… but he couldn’t really be one of them, not anymore. He kept living on, and humans just _didn’t._ How many people Maui had considered his friends had died over the centuries and millennia, like she would one day?

 _If you do not free the messenger,_ Hine-nui-te-pō had said, _your friend here will pay the price. Her life span is short; her soul will come to my realm one day, as you’re all too aware._

“That… must be difficult to watch,” Moana found herself saying, and Maui shrugged, scratching his cheek.

“Well, truth be told I wasn’t usually there,” he said slowly. “I’d drop by, go away for a time, and then when I went back next time, a few people were…” he made a vague gesture with his hand. “I didn’t let me bother me too much until, well. Ruihi and Vailele weren’t half bad -  Vailele even befriended a whale and learned about currents from it - that’s pretty amazing, I had to give him that,” he said, and gave the fire a distant smile. Moana said nothing, waiting for him to go ahead. He did, after a few moments of silence.

“You know, when you live eternally, you kinda see mortals growing up. Each time you visit they’re a bit older. Those two were inseparable since kids. I don’t think anyone in the village was surprised when he asked her to marry him. Or was it the other way around? You know, knowing them, it was probably the other way around. Anyway, they put off the wedding until I happened to drop by. They wanted me to be there, you know?”

Moana smiled. “That was really nice of them.”

“Yeah, it was. Fun party, too - lasted all night and we were all more than a little drunk the next day. Lots of fermented coconut milk. I am usually pretty proud of creating that tree, but that morning I was sort of regretting it,” he added, and gave a brief laugh before throwing another log into the fire. He paused for a moment, the harsh light of the flames making it impossible for Moana to miss his frown.

“I dropped by from time to time, sometimes even travelled with them,” he finally spoke again. “But as time passed, they were less likely to be at sea. Easier to find them home. They were getting old fast, but I didn’t really notice _how_ fast. Until one time I was away for a few years - can’t remember what I’d been doing, probably helping out other villages, or hunting for treasure with Crabby, or something - and, when I dropped by their island, they just… weren’t there anymore. Their kids were, and they were all happy to see me, but-- hey, wait, don’t cry! It’s been a long time and I’m over it, honest!”

Moana blinked. “But I’m… not?” she said. Sure, the tale had saddened her, but she wasn’t crying or… wait a moment, had someone just _sniffled?_ But if she wasn’t crying, Maui wasn’t crying and Tamatoa was unconscious, who…?

“All right, lizard, are you _serious_ now?”

Pilifeai straightened himself and began backtracking into the ocean, though not without another very obvious sniffle. “I got a barnacle in my eye!” he all but yelled before turning and diving back underwater, leaving Maui and Moana to silently stare at the ripples for several moments before Maui spoke up again.

“This is getting slightly out of hand,” he said, deadpanned, and Moana couldn’t hold back a snorting laugh.

“I think this got out of hand from the start,” she pointed out, causing Maui to chuckle as well and sit back on the sand. They shared a few moments of peaceful silence before she reached to put a hand on his arm. “For the record,” she said quietly, “I am planning to stay alive for as long as I can. And even afterwards, I can come looking for you,” she added. “If my grandmother can roam the ocean, then so will I.”

Maui stared at her for a few moments, then grinned and gave her shoulder a small bump. “I’ll be counting on that,” he said, and glanced down at Tamatoa’s sleeping form. “Plus, you’d also be able to find him and give him a piece of my mind if he dares die on us now.”

“Oh, I don’t think it would be needed. Missing out the moment I hit you with my oar would be enough of a punishment.”

“Hah! And here I was hoping you’d forgotten about it.”

“Not a chance,” Moana replied, elbowing his side, and they shared a long, peaceful silence before settling down to sleep. When Tamatoa shifted slightly on the sand, unconsciously moving closer to the fire and to them, neither of them stirred.

* * *

_“Uuuugh…”_

It was a groan, more than the light of dawn on her eyelids, that caused Moana to awaken. There was no grogginess, no stage in-between sleep and awareness: she was asleep one moment and sitting up the next, her mind perfectly clear and that groan - the meaning of that groan - all she could ear. “Tamatoa!”

“Uh-- what…?” Maui mumbled somewhere behind her, but Moana was hardly aware of his presence: she could only stare down at Tamatoa to see he was blinking against the light, and trying to pull himself up.

 _You’re all right,_ she almost said - then Tamatoa’s head fell back onto the sand with a whimper and words died in her throat, relief turning into dread. He was awake and aware, but he didn’t seem to be faring much better. He was still sick. He was still dying.

_No. No, please. This can’t be happening. He’s come so far!_

She was aware, dimly, of Maui’s hand on her shoulder while he knelt down next to her. Tamatoa stayed still, breath coming out in gasps, and Moana found herself unable to speak for a few moments. When she did, her voice was barely a whisper. “Tamatoa…?”

With what looked like a terrible effort, Tamatoa lifted his eyestalks just enough to look at them, antennae limp. “Human?” he rasped, blinking at her a couple of time. “Is that you?”

Trying her hardest to hold back tears, Moana forced herself to smile. “Of course it’s me. You didn’t think we’d leave you behind, did you?” she added, but Tamatoa seemed not to have even heard her. He leaned his head back down, spent, and closed his eyes.

“So, that was… that was pretty cool, wasn’t it?”

“That was amazing, buddy,” Maui spoke up, his own voice strained. “The most amazing feat I’ve ever seen.”

Another few moments, more labored breathing, and Tamatoa called out again. “So, did you… did you like the song?”

Something ached in Moana’s chest, and it took all of her willpower to hold back a sob. Her vision blurred, and she had to wipe her eyes. “Yes. Yes, I loved the song,” she managed, her voice shaking. She reached down to place a hand on his back, to comfort him somehow.

Except that she never got to.

“Ha-ah! I _knew_ it!”

_What…?_

Moana reared back, and so did Maui, when Tamatoa suddenly perked up and stood, pointing at them with a claw, all signs of distress gone. “I _knew_ you liked the song! Took you forever to admit it, huh?”

Moana’s eyes shifted towards Maui, who looked back at her in stunned silence before they both slowly turned back to Tamatoa - who, seemingly unaware of their reactions, was still talking.

“... And of course I knew you’d loved it, because who wouldn’t love my voice? And I came up with such clever lyrics, too. It only irked me you wouldn’t just admit it already - I mean, if I didn’t know better, I’d have almost thought you were trying to avoid the quest-- hey, what-- no! Hey! Put me down! Wait! WA--”

_“Aaaaagh!”_

Maui’s throw was nothing short of perfect. Tamatoa was flung through the air in a perfect arch, screaming all the way, and finally fell into the ocean with a loud splash - which was immediately followed by another as a huge scaly head suddenly popped out from underwater, much closer to the shore.

“Wait, what was that? What did I miss?” Pilifeai demanded to know, but Maui entirely ignored him:  he just gave a satisfied huff.

“Well, that felt good,” he muttered, then turned to Moana. “I know, I know, I probably shouldn’t have--” he added, but he was cut off when Moana held up her hand.

“No, no, it’s fine,” she said lightly. “He deserved it.”

* * *

“I _really_ didn’t deserve that.”

“Oh yes, you did.”

“Well, you refused to tell me whether or not you liked that song and feedback is _important,_ all right? So I thought--”

“Tamatoa?”

“What?”

“I can shrink you _again_ if you don’t drop it now.”

The remark had the desired effect, if anything: Tamatoa, back to his usual size, finally shut his mouth - though he did look at her with something that looked awfully close to a pout. In the end he just turned to glance back over his shell, to survey the damage done. After a few moments of silence, he heaved out a sigh.

“Well, this shell is done for,” he muttered darkly, looking away. He didn’t say anything about the great deal of treasure he’d lost again, torn away along with chunks of shell and even flesh, but it was clear that was precisely what he was thinking about.

“Well, you can molt,” Maui pointed out. “And then you’ll have a brand new shell we can cover up with all of the treasure we’ll find at the Taniwha’s islands.”

Tamatoa scoffed. “What, am I supposed to _thank_ you now?”

Maui lifted his hands. “Just pointing out the bright sides,” he said, and glanced at Moana, who crossed her arms and tapped a foot in wait. With a sigh, he turned back to Tamatoa. “By the way, uh… thanks. For trying to warn me, and… well, for taking one for the team.”

Under normal circumstances, Tamatoa would have taken the chance to gloat over Maui owing him - but those weren’t normal circumstances, and the sight of his mangled shell wasn’t helping matters. “I don’t _like_ molting,” the giant crab muttered, a whiny quality to his voice. “It takes _days_ for the new shell to harden. It’s all soft and _squishy._ I don’t like it.”

 _And it leaves you vulnerable,_ Maui thought. If that was the real problem, he couldn’t entirely blame him: he’d been hurt more in the past couple of weeks than he ever had been in millennia, after all. His torn limb must have been a walk in the park by comparison.

“You’re safe here. We’ll make sure nothing happens while you’re, as you put it, soft and squishy,” Maui promised, standing up, and threw the hook on his shoulder. “Not that I think you’re gonna need us as bodyguards. I mean, you’ve sort of beaten _death,_ Crabcake. What can even threaten you anymore?”

Tamatoa glared at him and opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out. Slowly, his expression turned into one of bewilderment, like he was just realizing exactly what had happened. “Oh. That’s right. She bit me and I didn’t die,” he muttered, and turned to Moana with a wide grin. “Hah! Now _that_ is amazing, isn’t it?”

She raised an eyebrow. “I am _still_ mad at your for the act you put up earlier, you know.”

Tamatoa’s face fell. “Aw, come on! It was just--”

“Go molt.”

“But--”

“Now.”

With a huff like that of a scolded kid who _really_ doesn’t think he deserved the scolding in the first place, Tamatoa crossed his pincers. “Ugh. Fine. But you’ve got to leave.”

“... What?”

“And don’t look!”

Oh, Maui thought, right. He’d almost forgotten that molting was kind of a private matter. “Won’t look. Actually, we’ll be off to catch some fish,” he promised, putting an arm around Moana’s shoulders to lead her away. It would be for the best: from what he could recall, a giant crab molting involved some less than pleasant noises as the old shell was fractured to, not to mention the crunching sounds when said crab proceeded to eat it.

Because, as Tamatoa had said a million times before, his Gran hadn’t raised him to be wasteful.

* * *

“Hey, Crabcake--”

“Eeek!”

“Oh, come on! I’ve seen you molting befo-- huh. Did you already eat all of the old shell?”

Half-hidden next to a huge, moss-covered boulder, Tamatoa shrugged. “I was hungry, man. And besides, a good chunk of it was gone,” he said, voice flat. He was resting his head on his claws, his antennae idly moving around a small pile of trinkets - all that he’d been able to scrape off his old shell’s remains, Maui supposed.

“... Right. Battling death burns calories, huh?” he found himself asking, rubbing the back of his neck a bit awkwardly. His gaze fell back on what little was left of the recovered treasure. “I’m, uh. Sorry about your stuff.”

Tamatoa gave him an apathetic look. “I should have told you about the hairpin sooner, huh?”

Maui sighed, dropping his shoulders. “Well, yeah. But I shouldn’t have gone off ahead like I did. I’d say we’re even when it comes to bad life choices,” he added, and tried to grin. Still, it died on his lips when his gaze fell on Tamatoa’s stump. “I’m also, well. Sorry for your leg.”

Tamatoa’s eyes flickered towards it, then turned back to the remains of his treasure. Some of it was still stained in dried, blue blood. “And I shouldn’t have attacked the humans, I guess,” he said flatly. “But they had so many shiny things, and I…” another pause, and he sighed. “Well, I’m back to square one anyway,” he added, and frowned down at the small heap of treasure before him. “It never really made me special, did it?”

_Well. Took him long enough, but here we are._

“What, that heap of junk? Nope. You did,” Maui pointed out, leaning on his hook. “Are you just forgetting the part where you’ve literally stood up to the Goddess of Death, wounded her, _and_ lived to tell the tale?” he asked, causing his antennae to perk up some. “Come on now, don’t make me go all Moana on you. What you did is the stuff _legends_ are made of, and trinkets had absolutely nothing to do with it. It was all you.”

Tamatoa looked rather smug as Maui spoke, but that died down some when he glanced back at the remains of his hoard. It looked like losing it all over again was a sore spot regardless, but it was no surprise to Maui. He’d been there as well: when you spend millennia - most of your existence - defining your worth a certain way, it’s hard to shake it off even once you know better. Pep talks may help, but that kind of stuff took time. He still had plenty of crap to work through himself.

“You know, if that’s _still_ not enough, I’m sure we’ll find plenty of shinies at the Taniwha’s island,” Maui pointed out. Tamatoa made a face.

“It won’t be enough. My shell is going to look _hideous,_ man. I’m scarred and it’s gonna show even more when the shell hardens. I bet there will be cracks and-- hey! Careful when climbing! I’m delicate!” he protested. Maui ignored him, and just hoisted himself up on his back - which _did_ feel sort of squishy, to be honest - to take a look. Tamatoa’s skin was several shades lighter than the shell, but it would darken as it hardened. It was also scarred, sure, and that would definitely show on the new shell, probably causing fissures. But they were unlikely to be deep enough to reach skin, and that would make them easy to fill up.

“Pffft, this is nothing. The Taniwha’s gold will be enough to fix any cracks.”

“No it won’t. It can’t be enough to cover all--”

“I said _fix_ them, not cover them.”

“Huh?”

“Just trust me on this one, Crabcake,” Maui said, jumping off and landing next to his head. “I’ll fix you up real good. You might even like your new shell better than the old one - it will show off your battle scars, and _that_ is a story you’re gonna want to tell everyone about. Your story. Like my tattoos, I guess? It’s gonna be something you earned. Oh, by the way!” He grinned and took a step back, spreading his arms. “Notice anything different?”

Tamatoa squinted at him. “... Did you give a hair trim?”

“Nope! It’s-- no, wait. Actually, yes,” Maui admitted, running a hand through said hair. His fingers paused for a moment on the hairpin still in it. “That too, just  to get rid of a few split ends. Thanks for noticing. Anything else?”

Tamatoa blinked at him. “Uuuh... I can’t think of-- hey, wait a moment…” he said, gaze pausing on Maui’s torso. There, on the right side of his chest, one of his tattoos had changed back to what it had been before. Maui was no longer holding onto the sun on his own: there was a well-known figure back in the picture, helping him in the deed. His own.

“Looks familiar? I mean, you _did_ help. I shouldn’t have taken you out of the narrative - these tattoos should tell _all_ of my story, and not just the parts I want to show off. Oh, but I _do_ want to show off this!” he added, turning to show his back and flexing his arms. “What do you think? I thought _this_ was a fight worth telling about. Please, don’t let the muscles distract you too much.”

There was no comment on his muscles, of course, as there was no comment about the new tattoo on his lower back; Tamatoa was too surprised, Maui supposed. It showed Maui himself trapped under a boulder, a hand reaching out, as well as Moana with her arms lifted in an extreme attempt at protecting herself - but the real centerpiece of the tattoo was Tamatoa, holding off a very pissed Hine-nui-te-pō.

“So, uh. What do you think?”

No answer.

“... I think you’re pretty on-model, really, but if you’ve got changes to sugge--” Maui went on, only to trail off when he heard  the muffled but unmistakable sound of someone sniffling.

_Well, who wouldn't have known? Making monsters cry is even easier than beating them._

“Tell me you’re not crying,” Maui found himself saying, and as a response he got another _very_ obvious sniffle as well as a predictable mumble on how something must have gotten in his eye. When Maui turned, Tamatoa was rubbing both eyes with the back of his claws.

“Must have been a piece of shell,” he muttered, and Maui immediately nodded. On his chest Mini Maui was wiping his eyes as well, with Mini Moana reaching over to pat his shoulder.

“Oh. Sure. A piece of shell,” Mau repeated. He didn’t bother asking if he’d liked the tattoo: the reaction had already told him everything. “So, uh. I’ll leave you alone now. Want me to bring over some fish while you get on hardening that shell? Moana and I caught some.”

Tamatoa immediately nodded, clearly relieved by the change of subject. “Oh. Sure. That would be nice,” he said, and paused for a moment. “... The human is not _that_ mad, is she?”

Maui laughed. “For your little stunt earlier? Maybe a bit, but she won’t be for much longer. She was terrified you’d die on us. Just... _never_ bring up that song again.”

“But she _did_ like--” Tamatoa began, only to trail off when Maui raised an eyebrow. “All right. I won’t,” he said, and Maui grinned before bumping a fist on his claw.

“Now just get that shell ready, and we’ll be good to go. Free the Manaia, get some loot while we’re at it - it’s gonna be a child’s play, just like old times,” he added, and turned to leave.

“Hey, Maui?” Tamatoa called out. Maui paused, and glanced back at him over his shoulder. The giant crab hesitated before shrugging. “... I’m glad I didn’t eat you.”

Again, Maui couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Hah! You should be. I bet I taste horrible, with all of this ink,” he said, walking away. He heard Tamatoa chuckling at the comment and, most of all, he felt his gaze on the new tattoo on his back until the moment he turned the corner.

* * *

“Maui, your tattoo!”

His hands busy holding onto the rope to keep the sail in the right position, Maui replied without turning. “Which one? You’ll have to be more specific. I’ve done a bit of redecorating.”

Instead of replying, Moana reached to brush aside Maui’s hair, so that she could take a better look. She had seen his new one, depicting the fight at Cape Reinga, and of course she’d noticed Tamatoa was also back in the one on Maui’s chest, but until that moment she hadn’t realized something else had changed, the one on Maui’s upper back.

When she’d last seen it, it showed a long-haired woman throwing a child into the sea; simple as the design was, there had been a sense of heartlessness to it that had made it hard to breathe for a few moments when she’d first learned its meaning. But now the tattoo had changed: he woman’s hair was no longer long and flowing, but cropped short; she was not throwing the baby at sea, but rather gently laying him to rest on the waves, wrapped up in a knot of hair. It was still heartbreaking to look at, but in a different way. Moana traced the woman’s figure with a finger, and looked up to meet Maui’s eyes from over his shoulder.

“Well, Hine-nui-te-pō sort of confirmed I was stillborn until the ocean and the gods intervened, so… I figured it was time to correct a bit of history I always got wrong,” he added with a shrug, like it was no big deal. But of course it was - the biggest deal of them all. Moana poked outline of the baby on his skin, and smiled.

“She’s going to be so happy to meet you,” she said. Maui blinked at her for a moment before turning away just a bit too abruptly, clearing his throat.

“I’ll find out when I see her, I guess,” he muttered, reaching up to rub a forearm across his eyes. “Ugh. Salt water.”

_Salt water. Sure._

“Hey, human!” Tamatoa’s voice rang out on their left. He’d emerged on a shallow patch of sea and was walking alongside the boat, head held just out of water. He’d refused to be shrunk again, and had travelled along with them by walking across the bottom of the sea.

“What is it?”

“Unless I’m wrong, and I _never_ am, we’re about to get there,” he added, antennae flickering towards the horizon. Sure enough, the outline of the Taniwha’s islands was becoming more and more visible. “I sort of wonder how did they manage to best the Manaia of all beings. They’re powerful.”

“Must have tricked them,” Maui replied, throwing the fishhook over his shoulder. “Some sort of trap. There is no way those gremlins bested the Manaia in a fight, so they must have been caught by surprise. But no worries, we won’t be. We’ll go and clobber them before they can even try to think up some trick to pull.”

Tamatoa glanced at Moana. “You said you had a plan to get past Headless Guy Who Is Actually The Manaia. Mind to share, babe? Because I think I’ve taken enough beatings to last me a lifetime or two lately.”

Moana shrugged. “It’s a simple one. I distract it, and you go for the island.”

“... What, that’s all?”

Beside her, Maui shrugged. “What else do you need? The Manaia chases after her, we get on the island undisturbed. We ask nicely for the head. If that doesn’t work we trash their place, take the Manaia’s head, you help yourself to any treasure, and then we return the head to its owner.”

“That doesn’t sound very safe.”

“What, afraid of the Taniwha now?”

“Wha-- no!” Tamatoa protested, clearly immensely offended by the mere suggestion. “Of course not! I mean that it doesn’t sound safe for the _human._ That thing is strong, remember? Held off both of us, and almost did me in when I tried to get  past it on my own. If it catches you, you’re done for.”

Moana grinned, leaning against the mast. “But first, it would have to catch me,” she said. “And it won’t even come close. You don’t need to worry about a thing. I maneuvered my way past Te Ka; I can outrun this one, too.”

Tamatoa opened his mouth to say something else, but someone got there first.

“Wait a moment, does that mean you’re splitting up? Am I supposed to _pick_ what to watch?” Pilifeai protested, head popping out from underwater. That gained him a few unimpressed looks.

“Yeah, we sort of forgot to tailor our plan for your convenience,” Maui said drily. “But no worries, you won’t need to pick, because you’re _not_ coming anywhere near the island. Can’t risk you getting the Manaia all the way to us while we’re busy recovering their head. On the other hand, you got yourself a first-row seat to watch the chase.”

“Wha--”

_“Iti haere.”_

Pilifeai indignant protests at being shrunk again was covered by a laugh. Tamatoa reached to pick him up from the sea with a pincer, holding him before his eyes, and grinned. “You know, I like you a lot better when you’re tiny,” he told him before glancing at Moana. “You sure I can’t eat him?”

“Absolutely. Just leave him with me.”

“Ugh. Fine,” he muttered, unceremoniously dropping Pilifeai down on the boat. The lizard immediately squirmed back his paws and glared daggers at Moana, who gave him an apologetic smile.

“Sorry, but we can’t risk you interfering. No worries, I’ll get you back your size once this is over with.”

“If this boat and everyone on it survives it,” the lizard snorted.

“Get praying, then,” Moana said lightly, and grabbed the rudder before turning to Maui and nodding. “I’m good to go. Move for the main island when the Manaia comes after me.”

“Will do. Lead them to a good long chase,” Maui said, and lifted his hook. “Crabcake, you just follow me. Chee-hoo!”

As Maui’s shark form disappeared under the waves, Tamatoa turned to glance at her one more time. “You sure you’ll be fine, babe?”

“Positive. Have fun raiding that island,” Moana added. On other circumstances she may have suggested a less aggressive approach, but she found she had little sympathy for beings willing to enslave another the way they had done with the Manaia. Unaware of her thoughts, Tamatoa grinned back.

“Oh, you bet we’ll be having fun,” he said, and disappeared underwater to go after Maui. Moana turned back towards the Taniwha’s island, reaching to take a hold of the sail.

“Well, so will I. Ready to go?”

In the hold, Heihei let out a distinctive ‘bwook’. Pua went to sit at the front of the ship, rigid like a warrior steadying himself for a fight. Pilifeai, on the other hand, sighed and flopped down on a rolled-up rope.

“I suppose there would be no point in telling you I can be more useful at full size, would there?”

“Nope. We’re not going to fight it, hust keep it running around like a headless chicken.”

“Bwaaak!”

“... Right. Sorry!”

“Hah! Headless! I see what you did there,” Pilifeai laughed, and sighed. “For the record, I’d be leaving this instant if you weren’t the only one who can turn me back my size. If we die doing this, I’ll spend all of eternity in the Underworld repeating that I’d told you so.”

“Noted,” Moana said, not precisely worried at the thought. After all, she was confident she could outrun the Manaia without too much trouble. And if she couldn’t, Hine-nui-te-pō’s threat to make her afterlife unbearable was slightly more concerning than anything a giant lizard could do or say.

* * *

“Aren’t you even a bit concerned?”

“Nope. Nice to see you are, though.”

“She’s just a human on a boat, up against a deity!”

“You know, the sooner you stop underestimating that human on a boat, the sooner you can stop feeling stupid when she invariably proves you wrong.”

“But--”

“No, really. Take it as friendly advice.”

“She almost died at Cape Reinga.”

“She was not on a boat.”

“... That is actually a good point. No, wait! There was a moment before that, when some rocks fell and--”

“Relax, Crabcake. There are no falling rocks here and no strong currents. She’ll do just fine,” Maui replied, perched on Tamatoa’s shell. He kept his gaze fixed on the boat sailing some distance away. She was almost near the spot where they’d been when the headless guardian had first attacked them, so any moment now… any moment…

The ocean next to the boat suddenly seemed to rise in a tidal wave, and Moana was reacting to it before the surface even broke: she immediately steered her boat in an almost complete U-turn and, when the headless warrior emerged to strike out at her, its hand hit nothing but water. It had missed, and Moana was already sailing away from it - fast enough to be out of reach, close enough to encourage the chase. And chase it did, turning its back to the main island… and to them.

“All right, it took the bait. Let’s go.”

It was a fast swim from their vantage point to the main island. As Tamatoa stepped on the sand, Maui turned to check the situation. Moana was still ahead of the Manaia, and she was also leading them behind the small island they had spent a night on - entirely shielding them from sight. Not bad, Maui thought, not bad at all.

“All right, let’s make this quick,” Maui said, throwing the hook over his shoulder. “We ask them politely, they decline, we take what we need by force and leave.”

Tamatoa tilted his head on one side. “Why are you so sure they’ll decline? I mean, they know who you are, and they’re on the small side. They could just take a look at us and decide the only smart thing to do is surrender,” he added, causing Maui to shrug.

“I’m doubtful but hey, I have been proven wrong before. Here’s your chance to find out.”

“Huh?” Tamatoa looked ahead to see what Maui had already seen: a bunch of Taniwha - slightly larger than humans, skin covered in scales, unblinking reptilian eyes  - staring back at them from the vegetation. They must have come to see what was going on when they’d heard their guardian being awakened and, if the spears in their hands were anything to go by, they had come prepared to take on any intruder who’d managed to get past the Manaia.

_Well, good luck with that._

Maui smiled, and spread his arms. “Good morning there. We’re here for the Manaia’s head, and for the treasure we know you have taken at the Vault. We’re going to give both back to their legitimate owners. My friend here,” he added, gesturing towards Tamatoa, “thinks you’re smart enough to know when to quit, so how about you do just that? Surrender, hand us what we want, and no one gets hurt. Well, unless the Manaia turns on your once freed. Which would be justified, by the way, after a thousand years or so of servitude, but I don’t think I’m the best person to lecture you into not messing with deities. If you surrender, pack up and leave as quickly as possible, the Manaia might even decide not to come after--”

He was cut off by a barrage of furious hissing, and a wall of spears being raised against them, tips glistening in the sun. Maui raised an eyebrow, then looked up at Tamatoa. He was looking down at the spears he may as well have used as toothpicks, clearly unimpressed. His gaze shifted to Maui.

“... Are they serious?”

“Yep. Told you they weren’t smart enough,” Maui said, and lifted his hook, ready for the fight. It was going to be a short one, and the outcome was obvious, but at least they _had_ tried to be polite about it.


	18. The Manaia

Tīaka knew perfectly that she wasn’t the brightest specimen her kind had ever produced - and that even the brightest of them all was probably nothing to write home about either - but she also knew another thing: contrary to popular belief, she was not a complete idiot.

Of course she’d been aware her mate was one; her mother’s input, which she’d never asked for in the first place, hadn’t been needed to work that much out. But it wasn’t like there was much choice, with their dwindling numbers and better specimens already taken. She only needed him for offspring, and then for nourishment once that was done. That he’d fight back and maim her in the process was not something she could predict. There was  _ always _ a chance they’d fight back instead of submitting; it was how things went. She’d been unlucky, that was all, and so had her clutch.

She was also aware that her decision to focus on raising her one remaining offspring instead of trying again with another clutch right away made no sense, and cemented other crabs’ belief she was a complete idiot; from their point of view, she supposed they were not entirely wrong. The reason why they had large clutches of eggs was that, out of all the larvae that came out of then, only a fraction would live long enough to become actual crabs - and even fewer would survive into adulthood. 

Tīaka herself was the only one left of her clutch, and the only still living offspring her mother had produced overall; it was extremely unlikely, to say the least, that the rickety larva currently chasing one of her flickering antennae would live for much longer. With her own life expectancy cut drastically shorter by the loss of both claws, it would only make sense for Tīaka to discard it and try again for another clutch while she was still on time - which was to say, for however long her own mother would be both willing and able to watch her back.

It probably would be the right thing to do, as far as her species was concerned; a species almost as old as the world itself, as what few elders they had left liked to repeat. It was a huge responsibility to a dying race, most of which seemed to think her brain didn’t work quite right. She could do as they asked, and prove they were wrong about her. 

On the other hand, there was that ridiculously tiny larva who chased her antennae, cried whenever she wasn’t paying enough attention to whatever stunt he was trying to pull, and only seemed to quiet down when she used her bioluminescence, staring up at her with unconcealed wonder.  _ He _ didn’t seem to think she was an idiot, with no need for her to prove a single thing. 

Looking back, it had been a surprisingly easy choice - and the right one. Contrary to popular belief, she was not an idiot at all. And, against all expectations, Tamatoa outlived everyone else.

* * *

“You’re trying to get us killed, aren’t you??”

“Relax, we’re doing just fine.”

“THIS IS NOT WHAT I CALL FINE!”

“My pig is taking this better than you are. What is that supposed to tell me?”

“THAT YOU ARE SUICIDAL AND SO IS YOUR PIG!”

Pilifeai’s shriek was lost beneath the sound of stone grating against stone and the loud splashing noise as the Manaia, or what they had been reduced to, tried and failed yet again to hit them. Moana steered the boat some distance away, rising the wave the huge stone being had caused but careful not to get too far. She already knew that, bound as they were to that place, the Manaia would stop chasing if she got too far ahead. She had to keep them focused on her, and that meant she needed to stay close, circling them within striking distance, but without letting it actually hit her. 

If she lost her boat and had be carried home by Maui in flight, she’d be distinctly annoyed.

“Hey! Watch out! The spear!”

The warning cry wasn’t really needed, because Moana had seen it coming, and she was ready. She threw the boat’s weight on the left, steering quickly, and the tip of the stone spear entirely missed them, piercing nothing but water. Pua let out a squeal that sounded nothing short of triumphant, and Moana laughed, maneuvering her boat behind the Manaia before they could even lift the spear again. 

“See? Everything’s under control,” she said, barely glancing at Pilifeai - who, on the other hand, was holding onto the floor of the boat with all claws, his blood-red scales now looking somewhat greenish around the snout. He turned to look up at her and muttered something that was probably a string of insults, but Moana didn’t pay him any heed, her attention suddenly taken by something else entirely: a column on water in the distance, caused by a whale blowing once… twice… thrice. 

_ Maui. _

“Hang on tight,” Moana said, cutting off Pilifeai’s protests, and steered sharply on the right, straight towards the small island between them and Taniwha’s, towards the side that was nothing but a wall of rock coming down into the sea. Pua gripped her leg and squealed, the bravado suddenly gone; Pilifeai voiced what they were both thinking.

“Wait, what-- no! What are you doing? We’ll be trapped!”

“Have you ever sailed a boat?”

“No, but--”

“Then  _ shut up _ and let me handle this!”

As the Manaia turned, Moana brought her boat as close as she could to the wall of rock before turning, a hand on the rudder and the other keeping a hold on the sail. “Come on! Do your worst!” she called out, and smiled when the huge being took a step towards her, raising the spear. Huge as it was, it raised waves by just moving - and that one wave, bouncing off the stone wall, was exactly what she needed to ride in order to move away quickly. 

“Hang on!” she cried out, and steered again, throwing all of the boat’s weight to the left. They sailed effortlessly beneath the spear as is whistled over their heads… and planted itself firmly into the stony wall. A few boulders fell down, causing the Manaia to topple backwards a couple of steps before regaining balance, hand still holding onto the spear’s handle.

With a cry of triumph, Moana quickly sailed away as far as she could while the Manaia struggled to pull the spear free. It was already budging and would come out quickly enough, but it only had to keep them busy for a few moments… just a few more moments…

“... Well, what now?” Pilifeai asked, gaze shifting between and the huge headless being. Moana smiled down at him. 

“Now just watch. Isn’t that what you like doing best?”

“But there’s nothing to wat--”

“CHEE-HOO!”

Maui dove down from the sky like lighting, his form shifting back into that of a human in mid-air, and the Manaia didn’t have enough time to react before Maui struck them in the chest with his hook. It was something he’d done before, and once again the huge headless being staggered back, sinking down on one knee… and straight into another trap.

“Hello there!” 

One of Tamatoa’s arms wrapped itself around the Manaia’s chest, holding tight and keeping them from trying to stand. His other pincer emerged from the churning water, holding onto something huge and made of stone - the statue’s head, shaped like that of a bird. “I got something for you!”

The being tried to break free, but it was too little and too late: the next moment Tamatoa brought the head down on its neck, where it belonged, and everything stilled. All of a sudden all noise stopped, even that of the waves, because there were no more waves: the ocean was unmoving, and the wind no longer blew. It was as though the world itself was holding its breath. Then, just as Maui landed in a crouch on the boat, the statue crumbled. It wasn’t like with Te Fiti, when the exterior had fallen away to reveal the goddess beneath: all of it just fell into pieces and tumbled into the water through Tamatoa’s grasp, causing him to yelp and take several steps back.

_ Wait. Had they… had they just killed it? _

As though guessing her doubt, Maui just shrugged. “Watch,” was all he said, and Moana did. She watched as light suddenly came from underwater, as the water in that spot moved into a small, slow-moving vortex. And from that vortex, slowly, stood something. 

If asked to describe it, Moana wouldn’t have known where to even begin, because it was as though the being’s appearance shifted before her own eyes. One moment she saw a huge bird, the next a serpent, then next a man; in some moments it was all three at once and then molten light. When the being spoke their voice sounded distant, like the echo of an echo. 

“Well, I’ll be,” the Manaia said. “Of all beings who could have freed me, it was a thieving crab.”

Recovering from his surprise, Tamatoa scoffed. “Nice to see you too again, buddy. For the record, I’m a  _ collector. _ Thanks for trying to kill me, by the way.”

“My actions were not my own, I am afraid,” the Manaia said, and turned to the boat, moving gracefully and hardly making a sound in the water. Their head - in that moment it looked like a bird’s, covered in iridescent plumage - tilted on one side. “Greetings, Maui. Greetings to your friend as well,” they added, leaning down to observe her more closely. “Thank you for helping me out of my servitude. I believe your pig has fainted. The lizard is not looking too good, either.”

“Wha-- oh! Pua!”

As Moana went to take Pua in her arms - and Pilifeai just kept gaping in silence - the Manaia turned to his left, where a column of water was rising. The Ocean gave them something that resembled a bow, and got a bow in return. 

“It is good to see you too, old friend.”

Behind him, Tamatoa scoffed and crossed his pincers. “Oh,  _ now  _ it shows up,” he muttered. Both the Ocean and the Manaia ignored the remark, though the latter did turn towards Tamatoa as the column of water disappeared from sight, not without rocking Moana’s boat briefly in what felt like a pat on the back.

“Do you happen to know how long I have been trapped?”

A shrug. “You were missing for a thousand years, give or take a few decades. You missed out Maui sort of dooming the world by taking the heart of Te Fiti, but he also put that back, so that’s nothing to worry about anymore.”

Maui gave him an unimpressed look. “Thanks for making sure to tell them about that.”

“Hey, he’d have found out eventually anyway. That, and how you tried to get into the Underworld again.”

There was a noise that sounded an awful lot like a deep, deep sigh. “Again?”

“Look, I learned my lesson--”

“I am rather certain that is what you said last time as well. To attempt that  _ again _ was amazingly foolish even for you.”

“Speaking of foolish,” Tamatoa spoke up, tilting his head on one side. “How did the Taniwha get your head, anyway? I mean, they’re sort of pathetic all things considered, and yet they bested you?”

The Manaia’s glow seemed to dim for a moment, and they gave a sound that sounded all the world like they were clearing their throat. “Well. They gave me offerings, and I had no reason to imagine it was a trap.”

“Offerings?”

“Wait, you mean like fermented coconut milk? Isn’t that a thing they offer?”

“Well…”

“Are you telling us they took your head by getting you drunk?”

“I suppose that, if you  _ must _ put it in crude terms…”

“Oh  _ gods, _ they just got you drunk!”

“Man, I’m not saying that’s embarrassing, but honestly? That’s embarrassing.”

A scoff. “It must have been laced with some sort of magic,” the Manaia muttered somewhat defensively. If the glance Maui and Tamatoa exchanged was anything to go by they were not at all convinced, but decided to say nothing. “But believe me, they shall pay for their inso-- is that smoke?”

Moana looked up to see that, indeed, there was smoke rising from the Taniwha’s main island - lots of it. Maui grinned and reached to rub the back of his neck. “Well, uh… yes. We sort of trashed their place. Gave them a good beating while we were at it. I’m pretty sure they already left the island. They were in a hurry to get away once we got your head back.”

The Manaia gave a low, somewhat ominous chuckle. “Well, no matter. I will find them. I have eternity to do so,” they said, and looked back down at Maui. “Foolish or not, you have freed me. You have my thanks. Is there anything I can do to repay you?”

Their eyes, black as the night sky, turned to Moana first. She who shook her head, still cradling an unconscious Pua into her arms. “Thank you, but I need nothing. Maui, however--”

“Well, I need something!” Pilifeai snapped. “I need to be back my usual size and away from this madness! I was just supposed to watch these idiots being suicidal, not to join in!”

The Manaia looked down at him, unblinking. “If memory serves me right, you were doing nothing but screaming,” he pointed out, causing Tamatoa to let out a snicker.

“I’ll turn you back your size in a minute,” Moana promised. Pilifeai huffed, but he said nothing more, and the Manaia’s attention shifted to Maui. 

“Anything I can do for you?” they asked, and Maui nodded, reaching up to take something out of his hair - the golden hairpin. 

“I’d… like to speak to the owner of this hairpin. She is long dead, and you alone can take my message to her now. I don’t know her name, but… this is enough for you to find her, right?”

There was a nod, and the Manaia held out a three-fingered talon to lay it over the hairpin. They touched it only for a few moments, black eyes turning a blinding white for a moment - was that a woman’s face Moana had just seen flashing in them? - and then retreated the talon. “Your mother,” they said. “Her name was Taranga. I will let her know her son wishes to speak with her. Hold onto that token, and she will be able to find you wherever you go.”

Maui let out a long breath. “Thanks, bud.”

They nodded, and glanced at Tamatoa. “Is there anybody you wish me to find for you?”

Tamatoa blinked at them, clearly taken aback. Asking the Manaia to take a message of his own to the Underworld didn’t seem to have crossed his mind. “Uh? No, not that I can think-- oh! Wait!” he exclaimed suddenly, antennae perking up. “I know! Can you look for my mother, too? Her name was Tīaka. I don’t remember her very well, and… I’ve got a question or two to ask.”

The Manaia nodded. “Tīaka,” he repeated. “I can find her. Do you have anything that used to belong to her?”

“Er… not really.”

“Hmm. Do you remember where she died?”

“Yes, that was--”

“That’s where I’ll tell her to look for you. Be there,” the Manaia cut him off, and suddenly they grew brighter, their form fading into something undefined that glowed like a small sun. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an old friend to return to. Shall I give her your regards?”

“Nope. She’d probably take it as an insult anyway. I’ll just leave it as it is,” Maui said quickly, causing the Manaia to chuckle one final time. They seemed to  _ melt, _ rather than dive, into the ocean. Within moments that light was moving away fast, leaving a trail behind, heading back towards Cape Reinga. They watched in silence until all signs on the Manaia had disappeared from sight, then Maui let out a whistle.

“Well, it’s done. I guess we can only wait now,” he muttered, and turned to the Taniwha’s main island. “But first, we need to recover some gold,” he added, causing Moana and Tamatoa to exchange a puzzled glance.

“Huh, Maui? Shouldn’t this be  _ his _ line?”

“Yes, pretty sure I’m the one who’s supposed to say that.”

Maui grinned. “Just trust me. I’ve got plans for that gold--”

“I think we should be worried.”

“... And for your shell. You’re going to love it.”

“Now I’m terrified,” Tamatoa said drily, but Maui didn’t bother to listen: he just turned back into a hawk and flew towards the island without another word. 

Tamatoa glanced at her. “... Is this the part where we follow him, babe?”

She sighed. “At this point, we should at least find out what he has in mind. Just to make sure he doesn’t get hurt.”

* * *

“Maui, this is  _ painful. _ What are you doing?”

“Melting the Taniwha’s gold.”

“I can  _ see _ that - that’s why it’s painful! It’s perfectly good stuff! Why are you melting it?”

“Wait and see.”

“Human, why is he melting the gold?”

“How would I know?”

“You’re the smart one!”

“Relax, Crabby. It’s to fix the cracks in your new shell.”

“... What?”

“All right, I think it’s as good as it gets. I’ll show you in a second. Let me climb up.”

“You’re crazy! I’m not letting you pour molten gold on my back!”

“Why not? The fissures don’t go down to the skin. I’ll just fill them up. You won’t feel a thing.”

“No!”

“... Wait, are you scared?”   
“O-of course not!”

“Want Moana to hold your claw again?”

“HUMAN!”

Holding back a sigh, Moana shot Maui a glance whose meaning -  _ are you sure about this? _ \- couldn’t be any clearer. When Maui gave her a nod - Mini Maui gave her a thumbs-up for good measure - she turned back to Tamatoa with a smile. “I’m sure you’ll be fine. Maui knows what he’s doing.”

Tamatoa gave her a long look, and she had to concede the point.

“... Let me rephrase. I think that Maui knows what he’s doing in this one specific occasion. Just do as he says and I’ll give him a few extra smacks with my oar,” she added, causing Tamatoa to brighten and Maui to protest. 

“Hey now--”

“Deal!”

“Oh! I want to see that, too!”

“Why is the lizard still here?” Maui snapped, causing Pilifeai - now back his usual size - to retreat back underwater, out of sight but definitely within earshot. “And why does everybody want to see me struck with an oar? I don’t deserve it!”

Moana just stared. So did Tamatoa. 

“... All right.  _ Fine. _ But I’m trying to do you a favor here, so keep that in mind, will you?” Maui grumbled, and finally climbed up Tamatoa’s shell with the pot of molten gold.

As it turned out, Maui really did know what he was doing and he’d been right when he had said the cracks were too superficial to reach the soft tissue beneath the new shell. Tamatoa gave no sign of pain, though he did keep his eyes squeezed shut like he was expecting plenty, and Maui took plenty of time up there. While she couldn’t see him, Moana could hear him blowing on the molten gold he was slowly pouring into the cracks, though not with as much power as he’d showed in Lalotai, when he’d easily blown a whole lot of earth and dust off the entrance.

“Is he done yet?” Tamatoa all but whined, only moments before Maui threw the empty pot into the sea - right in the spot where Pilifeai had disappeared, likely not by accident - and jumped off Tamatoa’s shell.

“All right, done. We’ll just give the gold some more time to harden. What do you think?”

Tamatoa opened his eyes, blinking a couple of times - surprised, Moana guessed, to find everything was over with without pain being part of the process at all - before he stood and turned back, eyestalks moving to get a good look at his shell. He stared for a few moments, then he blinked again.

“... Oh,” he finally said. “That’s… actually not bad.”

_ “Bwaaaak!” _

Maui grinned. “See, the chicken approves! Told you you’d like it! It’s like a tattoo of your own. Imagine the looks you’ll get when you tell everybody how you got tho--” he began, only to trail off when Tamatoa turned his back towards the sun and grinned.

“And look! It’s shiny!”

“... Yeah, that too. Not exactly the most important thing, but I guess--”

“Human, look! What do you think?” Tamatoa called out, entirely ignoring Maui’s words, and turned back to show off his shell to Moana. He had to tilt back some for her to take a good look, massive as he was, but that one look was enough for her to decide Maui’s idea had been great. The fissures on Tamatoa’s new shell, while not very deep, had covered a great part of it like a cobweb. Filled up with gold they looked like so many golden threads embedded in it, covering and showing off those battle scars at the same time. 

“It looks amazing,” she said, and she absolutely meant it. If the sheer amount of treasure that had covered it before had been impressive, the intricate web of gold had so much more impact, perhaps because she knew the story behind it. 

_ I had to go and try to make myself special on my own, _ Tamatoa had told her once, and the memory caused her smile to widen some. 

_ Well, you did it.  _

Unaware of her thoughts, Tamatoa spun on the spot again - to look at the gold shining in the sun, Moana guessed - and looked back at her with a grin. “Yep, it’s perfect. You actually had a good idea, Maui. I’m surprised.”

Maui snorted. “Gee. Thanks,” he said drily, but a smile was already tugging at the corners of his mouth. “That’s too much recognition at once, buddy. Are you trying to make me cry or--”

_ Whack. _

“Ow! OW! What was  _ that  _ about?”

Oar still lifted, Moana gave him an apologetic grin. “Sorry about that. I promised a few people I’d do it when I got the time.”

“Uugh. You could at least have given me a warning--”

_ Whack. _

“Ouch!”

“Before you ask,  _ that  _ was for leaving me in the middle of the sea to go off and die on your own.”

“I didn’t really plan on dying if I could help--”

_ Whack. _

“Oof! Aw, c’mon! Tamatoa, say something!”

“I think he could use a couple of smacks on his head.”

“... Come to think of it, feel free to keep your mouth shu-- ouch!”

“Good one!”

“Do it again in the gut! He makes a funny noise!”

“HEY! You don’t get a say in this, lizard! Go back-- yowch! Seriously?”

“Well, he  _ did  _ get us some dinner.”

“I’ll give you dinner-- No, seriously!” Maui cried out, lifting his hands. “How about I catch everyone some dinner, you stop smacking me, and we call it even?”

Well, now that was an interesting offer. Moana tilted her head on one side, oar still lifted, and glanced at Tamatoa. “What do you think?”

Tamatoa frowned in thought, reaching to scratch his chin with a pincer and dislodging a few barnacles in the process. Finally, he glanced back at Maui. “Fish dinner?” he asked, causing Maui to raise an eyebrow and gesture towards the sea all around the island. 

“What other option do you have in mind? You already ate everything edible the Taniwha left on this island. Plus several things that were probably never meant to be eaten in the first place.”

Tamatoa blinked. Maui sighed. “Yeah, fish dinner,” he said, and Tamatoa nodded at Moana.

“Sounds good to me. I think you smacked him enough. Sort of,” he added, and looked back at Maui. “... Just one more?” he asked hopefully, gaining himself an unimpressed look.

“If you want to catch your own damn dinner.”

“Fine, fine. Sheesh,” Tamatoa muttered, crossing his pincers. “A few friendly smacks and you get all--”

“Crabby?”

“Yes, exac-- hey!” he protested, but Maui didn’t bother to stay and listen to his complaint: the next moment he had lifted his hook and cried out before jumping into the sea, his shark form visible for only a few moments before it went deeper down and further out at sea. As Moana lowered the oar, leaning on it, Tamata huffed.

“He didn’t even bother to ask what kind of fish I want,” he muttered. “I mean, anything goes, but it would have been nice to ask. Right? I think it would have been nice.”

Moana shrugged. “Hungry as I am I could eat jellyfish if that’s what he brings back, tentacles and all. Just remember not to eat  _ everything  _ he catches _. _ We will need to smoke some fish to store away for the trip back,” she added, and turned to go start a fire - entirely missing the suddenly unsure look Tamatoa gave her before turning to the horizon, a frown on his face.

* * *

“Greetings, Hine-titama.”

Hine-titama, Lady of the Dawn. It had been a very long time since anybody had called her that; she’d left that name behind along with her life on the surface when she’d chosen to go down into the dark after the greatest of betrayals, and never return to the light of the day. 

She’d never regretted that choice, and she couldn’t say she missed her old name. That of Hine-nui-te-pō, Great Woman of the Night, was a far more fitting title. Powerful. Uncompromising. Over time, that old name had faded from everyone’s memory, or almost.

The Manaia had never forgotten it.

“... It has been a while,” Hine-nui-te-pō spoke quietly, turning away from the abyss. The Manaia floated before her in their sea serpent form, scales like so many pearls and radiating iridescence through the darkness of the depths. “I have been in need of the messenger in this past thousand of years.”

“And yet you did not replace me.”

“Hmph. Where have you been?”

“I suspect the demigod revealed as much to you already.”

“So they were telling the truth? You let the Taniwha best you? I am surprised.”

The Manaia lowered their head slightly. “... I am afraid so. I was tricked, my lady.”

Hine-nui-te-pō narrowed her eyes, with a distinct feeling fermented coconut milk - one of the Manania’s weaknesses - may very well be involved. If the uncomfortable look they gave her was of any indication, her guess was likely correct. In one of her rare bouts of mercy, she chose not to ask. “I assume,” she said instead, “that it was the demigod to free you.”

“Indeed. Him, a young human, and a thieving crab. Not the most conventional group I have ever laid my eyes on.”

“Ah. He lived,” Hine-nui-te-pō muttered, but truth be told she had already figured as much, as his soul had not come to her kingdom; either he’d lived, or he was taking more time to die than anybody had any right to. That meant he would likely never cross into the Underworld: forever the last of his kind, and yet another soul taken from her. Still, she supposed that was a small price to pay to have her messenger back.

Unaware of her thoughts, the Manaia nodded. “He did. Maui eluded your grasp again, I gathered.”

“He was lucky.”

“That, or he was spared.”

“And why would I spare him?” Hine-nui-te-pō asked, voice indifferent, but the Manaia knew why she’d let him go and she knew that they knew. Still, they let the matter drop.

“Fair enough. Maui truly is lucky.”

“And I assume he asked you to rely a message to somebody in my realm.”

“Him and the thieving crab both.”

“Not the human?”

“She asked for nothing.”

“Hmm. With the disrespect I had to endure from the lot of them, I should forbid you to do as they asked of you.”

The Manaia tilted their head on one side. “It would be within your rights to do so, my lady. You made me the messenger and you can take back that honor. But I do owe them my freedom. It is only fair that I pay that debt, you must agree. And harsh as you may be, you’ve never been anything less than fair.”

Hine-nui-te-pō sneered. “Flatterer,” she muttered, but she did move aside, to let the Manaia through into the Underworld. “Very well. Do what you must, and let’s never speak of it again.”

“Thank you, my lady,” the Manaia said, then, “it’s good to be back.”

It took Hine-nui-te-pō some effort not to let the sneer turn into an actual smile. 

_ It is good to have you back. _

* * *

“So, huh… I guess this is a goodbye?”

To be completely honest, Tamatoa really had no idea how he was supposed to handle things. He had never really had to say goodbye to anybody before: both his mother and grandmother had died suddenly and unexpectedly, and when he and Maui had parted ways… well, it wasn’t the kind of situation where a proper goodbye would fit at all, even if Tamatoa hadn’t been unconscious. And, afterwards, there hadn’t really been anybody he had much business with.

It followed that this time he wasn’t sure where to even get started, and he found himself more than a little worried that he’d start bawlin in case things got too sappy. He really hoped that wouldn’t happen and if it did he hoped Pilifeai wouldn’t be there to see it, because then he wouldn’t drop the matter for centuries. He’d probably tell everybody in Lalotai about--

“Did you hit your head or what, Crabby?” Maui spoke up, putting an end to his worried thoughts. Tamatoa blinked, and realized that both him and Moana were looking up at him in clear confusion. “You’re coming with us.”

He blinked again. “... I am?”

“Of course you are,” the human said like it was obvious, pushing the boat back into the water and hopping on it. “Or, to be more accurate, we’re coming with you. As long as Maui has the hairpin his family can find him anywhere, but the Manaia said you’ve got to be where your mother died, so that’s where we’re going. I’ll just need you guys to tell me the way and-- what is it?” he asked, frowning, when Maui let out a perfectly audible snicker. 

“What’s so funny?” Tamatoa asked, and Maui shrugged.

“Sorry, just thinking that the ocean may not be that big after all,” he said, lifting his hands. “We don’t need to tell Moana the way. She knows it already.”

“... I do?”

“Yep. I assume she died around the island where you used to live, right?”

Tamatoa frowned in confusion. What did that have to do with anything? “Yeah?”

“And that was  _ also _ where you saw my mother burying me at sea. My family lived there, too.”

“Of course. The humans left after some time, because they were, huh… how did you call them again? It’s been a few thousand years.”

“Voyagers,” Maui said, and grinned at Moana. “Hey, maybe they were your ancestors, before they moved on to Motunui. I could be your uncle some two hundred times removed.”

“Make it three hundred,” Tamatoa muttered, gaining himself an unimpressed look from Maui. The human, on the other hand, still seemed confused. 

“What do you mean, I know the way? Is it someplace we have already visited?”

“Well, sorta,” Maui replied. “Not that you had much time to look around. That’s where I picked you up from.”

That caused Moana to stare at him for a couple of moments, mouth agape. “Wait, the island we found - the one where my parents and the people moved to - that is… that was where Tamatoa lived? Where you were born?”

“Yep. Told you, maybe the ocean isn’t so big after a--”

“Wait, wait! There are  _ humans _ on the island?” Tamatoa blurted out, taking a step back. He didn’t like that, no sir, not at all. Not because he had anything to fear from them, but because they didn’t have a good history with humans and he’d found out at his expenses just how damn protective Maui got with them.

“What, are you scared now?” Maui was asking, taken aback. 

“Wha-- no! Of course not! I just. Don’t really mix with humans. You know. Hey, how about I hide in my old cave? You tell them to go away and  _ then _ I come out,” he suggested, causing Maui to raise an eyebrow. 

“I thought you said you’d never hide again. Pretty sure you claimed you  _ cannot _ hide.”

“Well--” Tamatoa began, but Moana cut him off with a wave of her hand.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I bet they’ll be in awe. I mean, who wouldn’t be honored to meet--”

“They already know about me, don’t they? That I tried to eat you and Maui, and take the heart of Te Fiti and all? You told them, right?” Tamatoa asked and he knew he was right when the human’s confident expression wavered for a moment. “Hah! See? There is no way they’re going to be happy to see me there!”

“Well, this time there is a different tale to tell,” Maui pointed out. “You just happen to have saved both of our hides. You know, I’m kind of surprised you haven’t come up with a song about it yet. You should think one up on the way so that you can tort-- entertain them with it.”

… Well, that was something Tamatoa hadn’t really considered. He paused and scratched his chin in thought, trying to think of something that rhymed with Hine-nui-te-pō. That was gonna be a hard one, he decided, and looked back down at Moana. “You’re  _ sure _ they’re not going to skewer me with sticks? They tried that when I was a lot smaller. Not that they can hurt me  _ now, _ but it would be annoying. Unless I can hit back at them. Can I hit back at them?”

“Absolutely not,” Maui replied. Moana shrugged. 

“What he said. You won’t need to, anyway. No one will try to harm you,” she added, and began lifting her hand, the one with the bracelet - to shrink him, no doubt. 

_ If they catch you they’ll pull you out of the shell, crack you open and-- _

“No! No! Wait!” Tamatoa exclaimed, holding up his claws. “Don’t!”

To his relief, she did pause. She stared at him for a moment, clearly puzzled, then comprehension dawned on her face. “Oh, it’s just for the journey,” she promised. “I’ll turn you back your size as soon as we’re within sight of the island. Just let us go ahead first when we get there. We’ll talk to them to, you know, prepare them. So that they aren’t--”

“Overwhelmed?”

“Yes, that. You know you’re kind of--”

“Magnificent?” Tamatoa suggested, faintly wondering what he could rhyme ‘Manaia’ with and entirely missing the way Moana’s lips had quirked upwards.

“Absolutely,” she said, reaching to grab the oar - something that caused Maui to flinch a little, but Tamatoa didn’t notice. “So, ready to go?”

They were. The last leg of the journey was a smooth sail from start to finish, the boat gliding over the ocean as the winds brought them back where everything had started.

* * *

_ “Is it… is it true? My son is alive?” _

_ “I tell nothing but the truth. He lives, and he is a demigod; the gods themselves chose him.” _

_ “That’s… that’s why I never found him here, in so many years? I searched for him for so long, but I never knew--” _

_ “You couldn’t possibly know. But you do now.” _

_ “He must have thought such horrible things of me! He must have thought--” _

_ “Do not blame yourself. He knows now, and so do you. Go find him.” _

_ “Oh, I will! I need to tell Ira-Whaki! And Mua. And Taha. And Pae. And Hina. And Roto. And--  is something the matter?” _

_ “How many children did you have again?” _

_ “Five… no, six with Maui. He was our last. Did the gods choose his name?” _

_ “I believe they did. Did you name him at all before saying your farewell?” _

_ “No, it all happened so fast. He came into the world too early, and then he was gone. We had a few ideas - I was partial to Tikitiki, but--” _

_ “My apologies. You were partial to what?” _

_ “... Yes, that was everybody’s reaction to it, just without the apologies. I suppose we wouldn’t have named him that after all. However… Maui. I do like it. His siblings are going to be so happy to meet him, and… oh, but he doesn’t know about them, does he? Do you think it would be too much at once? My children certainly can be… overwhelming.” _

_ “So it runs in the family, I see. I am certain he’ll be glad to see you all. May I ask for just one favor?” _

_ “Anything!” _

_ “Make sure that none of you ever, even as a joke, suggests he comes to visit you in turn. Because he might just try to do it.” _

* * *

“Mom! Dad!”

Being caught in her parents’ arms felt every bit as comforting as it had when she’d returned from Te Fiti. It meant she was safe, and that she was home. It didn’t even matter that the island was not Motunui - they were there, her people were there, and she was  _ home. _

“Oh, Moana. What took you so long?” her mother whispered in her ear, embrace tightening even more. It bespoke of all the nights she’d spent awake, all of the times she and her father had stared at the horizon hoping to see her boat, of all the moments they had held their breath while listening to a storm rolling by, wondering if she’d been caught in similar weather and if she’d found shelter. And she’d come so close to never coming back, so horribly close… which they would find out soon. If she and Maui could keep quiet on some details, she had no doubt that Tamatoa would just blurt it all out as soon as he got a chance. But, after nearly dying, she supposed he had the right to tell the whole story.

“I’m sorry, mom. There were… a few changes of plan. I’ll tell you everything soon,” she said a bit sheepishly, and they finally let her pull back. The other villagers had cheered for her return, too, but now they were giving her a few moments alone with her parents - and their attention had shifted, obviously enough, to Maui. Unsurprisingly, he was relishing in it: laughing and joking and returning pats on the back, letting a group of kids try to lift his hook over their heads and trying to reply to far too many questions at once.

Of course Moana would tell everyone about Tamatoa as soon as the excitement had died down enough to allow it, but she supposed she may as well tell her parents first. 

“Speaking of changes of plan,” she said, reaching to grab them both under the arms. “There’s somebody who’ll join us in a bit, and I think we should have a word about him first…”

* * *

_ “So. I was an idiot, wasn’t I?” _

_ “Well--” _

_ “Wasting my time on a runt, I think was what you said.” _

_ “I just--” _

_ “He wouldn’t live another week, would he?” _

_ “Listen, by all logic--” _

_ “You can take your logic and stick it, mother dear. You were wrong. Say it.” _

_ “Now don’t be childish.” _

_ “I’ll be as childish as I please.” _

_ “You’re acting like you’re two centuries ol--” _

_ “I was right and you were wrong. Right. Wrong. Right. Wrong. Say that you were wrong. It’s been five thousand years and I have a physical need to hear you say those words right now.” _

_ “Uuuugh. Fine. I was wrong. Happy now?” _

_ “I’ll be happy when I’ve seen my son. Why didn’t anyone ever tell me there is a way out of this place? I would have gone to see him millennia ago!” _

_ “Don’t look at me! I wasn’t aware, either.” _

_ “Well, we should have been told! I’ll be having a few words with this place’s management when I come back.” _

_ “You’re not thinking of going on your own, are you? It’s a stupid ide--” _

_ “And what do you think can happen to me? Dying again?” _

_ “No, I… er… well. You’d probably get lost on the way, so I figure I must--” _

_ “Oh, please. You ‘must’ nothing. If you want to see him, stop coming up with excuses to sound tough and just come.” _

_ For once in her life, or rather afterlife, Tupuna shut her mouth and followed. _

* * *

“... Moana.”

“Yes?”

“I understand the pet chicken. I understand the pet pig. I have...  _ concerns _ about this one.”

_ Then wait until you find out about giant lizard I am sure followed us all the way here. _

Taking a mental note to tell them about Pilifeai later, Moana turned to give her father what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Dad, he’s not a pet. He’s a friend. No, I mean-- sorry, Pua, I didn’t mean anything by it! Aww, don’t look at me like that!”

“He tried to eat you.”

“Well, I might have exaggerated that one. Maybe he was just going to take a bite.”

_ “Moana.” _

“Look, you don’t need to worry. It’s all fine now. That was a long time ago.”

“Weeks. It was  _ weeks _ ago.”

“Really? It feels like a lot longer,” Moana said lightly, Pua in her arms, and turned to glance at the sea. Maui had gone find Tamatoa after she was done telling her people exactly what had come back to the island with them, and now they were sort of waiting for them to come out of the sea. Most of her people - those who had come to the new island, anyway - were standing a bit behind her and her parents on the beach. They looked rather scared, to be honest, but none of them had wanted to stay behind at the village they had begun building, although they had ordered the children to stay there. 

Moana wasn’t sure how much of it was due to natural curiosity and how much due to utter trust in what she said; she sort of hoped it was a bit of both.

“Moana,” her mother spoke very quietly, putting a hand on her arm. “Are you sure he’s not dangerous?”

She smiled. “Positive. He’s learned a thing or two on the way. You don’t need worry.”

Sina sighed, but she made an effort to return the smile. “I am your mother. Worrying is what I do,” she said, but did not question any further: she just stood by her side and, if not for Pua in her arms, Moana would have hugged her again.

* * *

“... This cave got smaller since the last time I was here.”

“You know it didn’t. You just got bigger.”

In the dim light the algae on the walls gave out, Maui saw Tamatoa turning towards the back of the cave. He hadn’t told him that was where he would be headed when he let him and Moana go ahead, but it hadn’t taken Maui much guesswork to guess where to find him. 

“Not as big as Gran,” Tamatoa finally spoke, and moved a step to the left. “Heh. I could still get into her hole to sleep with room to spare, see?” he added, only to pause for a moment to turn towards the other hole in the ground. “... I no longer fit in that one, though. That was Ma’s. She didn’t live long enough to get my size,” he added, and frowned. “She seemed so huge, but it was just me being so tiny. I can barely remember her.”

“I bet she’ll be impressed when she sees you, then,” Maui said, faintly wondering if he looked anything like his own mother - Taranga, at least now he knew her name - would imagine him. Did he resemble her? Did he resemble his father? Both?

_ Well, I’ll find out soon. _

Yes, he would. He didn’t know just how soon - and to be honest he’d found himself staring at the ocean at night on their way back, faintly hoping to see the unmistakable glow of a departed spirit approaching - but it would be any day now, he was certain.

The thought filled him with a nervousness he wasn’t used to, so in the end he chased it from his mind and just followed Tamatoa’s gaze. Both holes in the ground had been unused for a very long time, moss and bioluminescent algae now coating them. “Oh, when she gets here, remember to show off those marks on your back! She should tell everyone in the Underworld about it. Especially to those two old hags we met in Manawa-Tane!”

Tamatoa snorted out a laugh. “Hah! I like the way you think, man,” he said, grinning, and finally turned to him. “So, I take it the humans were warned?”

“Yep. Moana told them everything, so they won’t panic or anything. Though they are a bit worried because, well. You  _ are _ a giant crab would could flatten the village they’re building in thirty seconds, and them with it.”

Tamatoa rolled his eyes. “Look, it was one time, okay? I don’t do that anymore.”

“... I am actually rather certain it was several times.”

“Fine. Several times a  _ long _ time ago. You know I’m not up to anything now,” he added, only to pause and give him a slightly worried look. “... You do know I’m not, right?” he asked.

Maui laughed. “Yes, I know,” he said, and gestured towards the cave’s exit. “And so do they, so enough with the shy act. Ready for the grand entrance?”

Tamatoa huffed. “I am  _ always  _ ready for a grand entrance. The real question is whether the humans can handle it. I bet none of them has ever laid their eyes on something  _ this  _ magnificent,” he added, pointing at himself with a claw and causing Maui to shrug. 

“Well, Moana did her best to prepare them. A couple of them might faint regardless--”

“Not my fault!”

“I know, I know. Just be careful not to step on anybody and you’ll be fine.”

“You bet I’ll be careful. Last thing I want is squashing a human now. There are experiences I don’t want to repeat,” Tamatoa muttered, causing Maui to sigh. For a moment he had almost forgotten that things had taken a very ugly turn last time they had both been on that island, and that it had been Tamatoa’s main reason for leaving it in the first place.

“Look, if there is an accident, I won’t get so mad I--” he began, only to be cut off by a snort.

“Oh, it’s not you I’m worried about,” Tamatoa pointed out, stepping past him and towards the exit leading back to the surface. “It’s Moana I  _ really _ don’t want to be mad at me again.”


	19. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this got long. But I couldn't find a good place to split it, so here's the whole thing - I guess it makes up for the epilogue, since it will be rather short!

Taranga had known something was wrong from the very start, when the pain had struck - sudden, agonizing, and all too soon.

She’d brought five children into the world already, four sons and a daughter, and she had come to known the pain of the delivery all too well. But her children had been healthy, all of them born at the ninth month. This time, the pain had come at the beginning of the seventh. It was far too early; from the instant the midwife had come into her home, after her children were ushered outside to play before they could realize anything was wrong, her grim expression had told her as much.

“My baby,” she’d managed to plead, but the woman had shaken her head.

“You have five little ones already, and you can have others. It is you I need to save,” she had said, and save her she did. The pain had ended, but she’d hardly taken notice. All she could do was staring a at the unmoving child, listen to the deafening silence that was never broken by a single wail. The midwife had tried to revive him, but of course it had been for naught. You cannot revive a stillborn. Only the gods can, and the gods were not answering to her prayers.

“Don’t take him away,” was all Taranga said after a long time, causing the woman to pause.

“He should be buried, dear.”

“I’ll do it by my own hand. I need some time with him. Please.”

She nodded, and placed down the child. She’d cleaned him, wrapped in a blanket. It had been the baby blanket of all of Taranga’s children, from Mua down to Roto, and now it was a shroud. The thought should have pained her, but instead it left her cold, as though she was someplace beyond pain. Even physically, she hardly felt any; nothing compared to previous childbirths, because the baby she’d delivered was so much tinier.

“I’ll have someone look after your children for a while longer. Do you wish us to tell them…?”

“Please,” Taranga said, closing her eyes. She didn’t think she would be able to hold it together if she had to tell the children that the baby brother - or sister, Hina always said pointedly to her brothers’ amusement - they’d all be waiting for had arrived too early, and was now gone before his time even started. Taha would probably try to keep a stiff upper lip, the little warrior, but Pae would certainly burst crying, and before long they all would be sobbing. She couldn’t bear to listen to their crying now: it would only remind her of the wails she _should_ have heard that day, and never would.  

_I’ll have to tell Ira-Whaki, when he returns._

Thinking of her husband was even worse. Big, strong and a boy at heart, he’d been even more delighted than any of his children to know he was to be a father again. He’d laughed, gifted her a golden hairpin he’d fashioned with his own hands, and left for a voyage with a smile as wide as the horizon, promising he would be back on time to welcome his newest child into the world.

But that child had arrived too early, and his father would return too late.

_We didn’t even get to give him a name._

Somehow, it was that thought that got her to finally sit up, and take the still body of her child in her arms. For a moment she stared down at him, hoping against hope to see him moving, to hear him sucking in a breath and wail, but of course none of it happened. Her youngest son never breathed, and he would never have a name. There would be no point to it now; what good is a name if no one ever calls you by it?

Voices outside her home snapped her from her thoughts, causing her to look up. She could hear the voices of children and, higher than them all, Hina’s protests that she hadn’t _lost_ her bracelet of glass beads at the beach, that someone must have stolen it. She was still unaware that she had lost more than a bracelet that day, but soon she and her brothers would be told, and Taranga didn’t want to be there when it happened: she wouldn’t be able to give them any comfort. Not before she got a chance to mourn, not before her child was buried at sea as it was custom, so that his soul could find its way to the Underworld. Then, perhaps, she could be there for her living children without shattering.

So Taranga stood, kissed her stillborn son once, and went alone to do what had to be done. It would be only much later, while running a hand through what remained of her hair, that she’d realize she had forgotten the golden hairpin her husband had gifted her in the sand. She found she couldn’t bring herself to care; it was but a reminder of the child she had lost, and she had no use for it.

For the rest of her life - which would be long and overall happy, with five children to watch grow into adulthood and more grandchildren than she could look after on her own - she’d keep her hair shorn. And, for much of her existence after death, she would look for her lost boy across the Underworld.

She never found him, but never truly stopped trying.

* * *

“Look at the claws! Hey, can you uproot trees with these?”

“What kind of question is that? Sure I can. Several at once.”

“This is sooo cool!”

“Of course it is. Everything about me is-- hey! Keep your hands out of my eye, will you? And quit yanking my antennae! Have human kids _always_ been this nosy?”

“Is this real gold?”

“When did _you_ climb-- well, of course it is! No cheap knockoffs on my shell. Wait, are you trying to bite it? What’s wrong with you, kid?”

“Just checking it’s real gold!”

“I _told_ you it is. Keep your teeth off my stuff!”

“Oh! Oh! I have a question! Why are you so big?”

“I eat a lot.”

“A lot of what?”

“Curious human kids with curly hair and a missing front tooth.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“Me neither!”

“You’re totally bluffing!”

“Moana said you wouldn’t raise a pincer on us!”

“Oh, did she? Great. There goes my reputation.”

“What reputation? I never heard of you before. Only of Maui.”

“... Don’t push your luck, kid. There’s a lot of stuff you never heard-- what have _you_ got there?”

“A pearl! I found it this morning! Do you want it?”

“What?”

“Moana said you like these things.”

“... What’s the catch?”

“Huh?”

“What, you’re just giving it out for free like-- oh! Oh. That’s a present, right? Of course it is. Who _wouldn’t_ want to give me presents?”

“Do you like it?”

“Well, it’s not a bad find for a beginner. Give it here.”

“Can put it up on your shell?”

“If you insist--”

“Hey! You’re missing a leg! Why are you missing a leg?”

“A megalodon ate it.”

“Cool!”

“I didn’t think it was _cool_ at a--”

“How did that go?”

“How big is a megalodon?”

“Is it bigger than a wale?”

“Is it bigger than you?”

“Is it bigger or smaller than--”

The rest of the sentence was covered by Maui’s chuckle. “Well, who’d have guessed? They hit it off right away,” he muttered before taking another bite out of the coconut. He seemed to have absolutely no trouble chewing the entire thing, shell and all, which had fascinated all  the children in the village the first time they’d met - but now their attention was entirely taken by the talking, giant crab monster currently sprawled on the sand. Maui didn’t seem to mind at all, and was observing the scene from some distance away. “Then again, he’s got their undivided attention. Of course he loves that.”

Moana supposed that the introduction had gone as well as they could have possibly hoped. A couple of people _had_ dropped unconscious when he’d first come out of the water, but that had been about it. Her people had trusted her word enough not to panic and Tamatoa, to be fair, had done his best to look as nonthreatening as possible by immediately resting down on the sand. He still towered over everyone, obviously enough, but she supposed it was the thought that counted.

The kids were not supposed to be part of the picture at all, and their parents had all told them to stay behind in the village, but of course that had stopped precisely none of them. That had caused some concern from the adults when they’d suddenly appeared to check out the novelty - more than a few were still eyeing Tamatoa’s claws worriedly - but, overall, they seemed to be coming to terms with his presence quickly enough. Not quite as quickly as their children, but still pretty fast all things considered.

“It went pretty well,” Moana conceded, with no small amount of relief.

Beside her, her mother frowned slightly. “What _does_ he eat?” she asked, causing Maui to shrug.

“Fish, mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“Oh, and a bit of this and a bit of that. He’s kind of a scavenger, not really picky. No need to worry about that - he’s pretty good at catching his own food.”

Tui gave a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. We usually offer food to any guests, but… well,” he said, gesturing towards Tamatoa. “He probably eats more than all of us.”

Moana shrugged. “Don’t worry about that. If you want to get him anything, just pick something shiny. You can’t go wrong with--”

“All right, all right, just be quiet a moment!” Tamatoa’s voice cut her off. “If you shut up I’ll tell you just what happened - in song form!”

_Oh. Oh no._

“Nope. I’m not listening to this one,” Maui declared, and stood, reaching for his hook. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s been great to see you all again, but Moana and I have some sudden, urgent business on the other side of the island. Be back later. Enjoy the show for us, okay? And even if you don’t, for Tagaloa’s sake, tell him you loved it.”

“Wha--” Moana’s father began, but he had no time to say anything more before Maui shifted into his hawk form, grabbed Moana, and flew off quick as lighting.

As much as she disliked flying, Moana had absolutely no complaints this time.

* * *

“Do you think it’s safe to go back? He _can’t_ be still singing, can he?”

“He could very well be, and you know it. By the way, are you ever gonna stop following us?”

Stretched out in the low waters, the setting sun making his scales look an even deeper red than usual, Pilifeai shrugged. “Well, I don’t have much else to do. Lalotai gets rather dull after a thousand years or two.”

“So what, you just decided you’re going to hang around? Last time you decided to bother humans--”

With a sigh, the giant lizard rolled on his back. He seemed to be enjoying the last rays of sun immensely. “Yes, yes. They had their ancestors chase me all the way back to Lalotai because I apparently wasn’t such a great neighbour.”

Maui raised an eyebrow. “Apparently?” he repeated. “You ate all of the fish and refused to scram when asked to.”

“Oh, was I _asked_ to leave now? And here I thought they tried to skewer me with pathetic little spears. And it’s not like the fish in the sea _belonged_ to them,” Pilifeai pointed out, but sighed at Maui’s glare. “I know, I know. I won’t cause problems this time around. I’m not looking forward to get my tail kicked by the dead again. Or a demigod with a horrible temper, or a human who happens to be able to shrink me at will, or a giant idiot crab who apparently decided the tiny humans are his pets from now on.”

Moana let out a small laugh, finally sitting up on the sand. “It looks more like they decided he’s _their_ giant pet from now on.”

“To anybody but the idiot crab, yes. Let him keep the delusion.”

“Fair enough,” Maui said, only to frown when a cloud suddenly passed in front of the setting sun. It was beautiful to see - the cloud itself looked like it was aflame, the shades of orange starting to give in to the growing darkness of the evening - but it was a reminder than they’d been there for several hours. He sighed, and stood. “Well, maybe it’s time to get back. He’ll have _probably_ stopped singing by now. Should we take the risk?”

Moana nodded and opened her mouth to agree, but words died in her throat the moment the her gaze fell on the sea. Without the rays of the sun making its surface shimmer, the ocean looked darker - and thus it was easy to spot something moving towards the shore, something that shone of an otherworldly light, leaving a trail in its wake. Moana knew what it was, because she’d seen it before, and she knew _why_ it was there.

“Moana? Hello? I said, should we take the ri--” Maui began, only to trail off with a yelp when Moana wordlessly grabbed him by the ear and made him turn towards the ocean. “Ow! What was that abo--” he began, but then he turned his gaze to the sea, and his voice faded into silence. “Ah,” he finally said, and Moana let go of him. He stood straight, rubbing his ear and saying nothing more: he just watched along with her as the shimmering form reached the shore, until something that looked like fine mist rose from the waves and then took on a different shape - until a woman stood on the sand some distance away, like Gramma Tala had once stood on Moana’s boat. She turned to look at them, her expression impossible to see from that far away, and Maui’s fishhook fell from his slackened grip.

“Well,” Moana said, her voice very quiet, “I’ll leave the two of you alone.”

Maui didn’t reply, but she hadn’t really expected him to. She just watched him begin to walk up to the woman - very slowly, so much unlike his usual strides - and then turned to Pilifeai, who was squinting at the woman as though trying his best to see her face.

“I hope you’re not even _thinking_ of eavesdropping this one.”

“Well, after coming this far--”

“Iti haere.”

“Wha-- Oh, you _are_ a pain, you know?” Pilifeai grumbled. Moana shrugged, picking him up and settling him down on her shoulder.

“You’re staying like this tonight,” she informed, turning away and starting what was going to be a fairly long walk back to the fledgling village. If Maui’s mother had come now it was likely Tamatoa’s would as well soon, and she wasn’t going to let Pilifeai intrude into that one, either. “Behave and I _might_ turn you back your full size in the morning.”

“You know I can swim like this too, right? What keeps me from going the moment you turn--”

“And risk becoming some big fish’s dinner? Or a bird’s? I am pretty sure I have seen hawks around here,” Moana pointed out, causing Pilifeai to fall silent for a few moments as he tried to think of a retort. He clearly couldn’t think of anything, and he finally sighed.

“I loathe you.”

“No, you don’t. Just stick with me tonight, and you’ll be safe.”

“How about I bite off one of your ears?”

“Go ahead. I heard that roasted lizard is delicious.”

Pilifeai sighed, and settled down across her shoulders. “Ah well. It was worth a try,” he muttered. Moana chuckled and, before going around a bend, she turned to give just one glance back.

“Aww, look at that. They’re hugging,” Pilifeai said, and Moana smiled. There was lump in her throat and her vision was getting a bit blurry, but it didn’t feel bad at all.

“Well. That started out pretty well,” she said, and had to reach out to wipe her eyes before she turned back and resumed walking. “That hug was a long time coming.”

Pilifeai sniffled.

“... Sand in your eyes?” Moana guessed, but she had to wipe her own eyes again even as she grinned, causing the lizard to snort out a laugh.

“And in yours as well. I won’t tell if you don’t tell.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

* * *

Maui had prepared a short speech for that moment.

Well, maybe not quite a speech, but he’d definitely been thinking up scenarios, and had had a few words in mind to tell his mother, when they were finally face to face. He had rehearsed them in his mind, over and over.

Except that now he didn’t remember a single word. It was hard to remember much of anything with his brain seemingly frozen, unable to process anything but the woman only a few steps from him. To be completely fair, he wasn’t the only one: she was doing exactly the same, just staring at him with wide eyes and not saying a single word. There was a light breeze, but it didn’t seem to touch her, her translucent clothes not moving with it. Somewhere by them the ocean waves still rolled, but they sounded so far away.

Without thinking, Maui brought a hand up to his hair and took the hairpin. He held it out on his palm, so that she could see it - _it is me, you see, it’s really me_ \- and her gaze paused on it for a few moments before looking back up at his face. Her eyes moved across his features, as though she was trying to find anything she’d recognize, but how could she? Last time she’d seen him, he’d been a baby… and not entirely formed to boot.

_I don’t look like her._

The thought stung, just a little. There really was no resemblance he could see, aside from maybe something about the eye shape. She was taller than most women he’d met, but her frame was so slim it was hard to believe she’d carried him at _any_ point in life, baby or not, and her features were a lot less marked than his own. Maui’s eyes moved from her face to her hair, which was short, uncannily so. Had they never grown back after she cut it to mourn him? No, that was ridiculous, growing was what hair did. Had she kept it short by choice? Had it been because of him, for him? Had she--

“This is where I came to lay you to rest.”

Her voice was quiet, as though coming from a mile away. Maui recoiled, and realized only then that she had turned her gaze to the rolling waves. She stared at them for a few more moments, as though seeing something he could not, and Maui finally found his voice.

“... It is?” he asked, looking around as though hoping to see a village that must have stood near that spot, a long time ago. It was odd to think that, some five thousand years earlier, his motionless body had been brought on those shores to be left to the sea, with Tamatoa watching on, still small enough to go unnoticed. Had he not stolen the hairpin that day, had Maui never met him, he would have never known the truth… and neither would his mother.

“Yes. Or at least, I thought I was laying you to rest. I thought I would never see you again. And then, when the end of my life neared, I thought I finally would. But you weren’t there,” she spoke again, a shaky quality to her voice that made Maui turn back to her. There were tears in her eyes, translucent as the rest of her was, but she was beginning to smile. “But here you are again. Here of all places. All grown up, a _demigod,_ and… oh gods, you look so much like your father!”

Looking back, the statement shouldn’t have surprised him that much; most kids resemble at least one of their parents. But it was unexpected enough for Maui to be taken aback, and so was what she did next - she closed the distance between them and threw her arms around his neck.

“I looked for you for so long,” she choked out, and Maui held her back without thinking. It didn’t feel like holding onto someone of flesh and blood, but she wasn’t incorporeal either, and it was a lot more than what he’d thought he could have. For most of his life, he’d tried his best to keep himself from even wondering what a mother’s embrace would feel like.

“I’m sorry,” Maui heard himself saying. His own voice sounded alien to him, hoarse, and there was no blaming sand in his eyes for that. “I didn’t know-- I just assumed you had… since I was left at sea…”

Taranga’s arms tightened their grip, her face resting against his shoulder. “Never, I could have _never._ We were so eager to welcome you. You were _so_ wanted.”

Something in Maui’s chest, a weight that had always been there - no matter how hard he tried to ignore it, no matter the lessons learned and the knowledge that he was _worthy,_ whether or not those who had brought him into the world could see it - melted away, the familiar ache turning into something else he couldn’t quite define. How do you even begin to call the absence of an ache that used to be such a fundamental part of you, the very core of everything he’d ever tried to be? Maui didn’t know. And at the moment, he found that he really didn’t care.

_You were so wanted._

“I know it now,” he found himself saying. “A crab told me. The one who stole your hairpin.”

The sound that left her could have been a sob, or a laugh, or both. She finally pulled back - it took Maui some effort to force himself to let go - and reached to take his face in her hands. “You’ll have to tell me all that happened, because the Manaia’s explanation was quite confusing,” she said, and smiled again, thumbs brushing over Maui’s cheeks. He leaned into the touch without thinking. “Along with everything else you’ve been up to. I’d heard of you, can you believed it?” she added, and laughed. It sounded much deeper than he’d have expected from someone so slim. “So many people coming to the Underworld talking about this great hero, this Maui, and it was you. My little littlest boy, not so little anymore.”

Maui gave a somewhat sheepish grin. “Well, hope you have some spare time, because there is a lot to tell. Some of the stuff I did wasn’t… well, I didn’t really think it all the way through. But overall-- wait,” he cut himself off, blinking down at her, the moment what he’d just heard sank in. “Your _littlest_ boy? Do I have siblings?”

Taranga smiled up at him again. No, wait, that wasn’t a smile at all - that was a grin. Suddenly, Maui could see some resemblance all right. “You have five.”

_“Five?”_

The grin became somewhat sheepish. “Mua, Taha, Pae, Roto and Hina. I asked them to stay behind, because I figured that… well, seeing us all at once might be overwhelming.”

Maui, who’d already started to grin himself, felt a pang of disappointment at the words. “Ah,” said. “I… would like to meet them too, sometime. Maybe next time--”

“Well, that’s good to know,” his mother cut him off, turning to glance at the sea with a raised eyebrow. “Because as usual, they didn’t listen to me at all.”

“... Huh?”

Maui followed her gaze. The sun was almost entirely gone now, the sky beginning to darken, and he could see something approaching fast - five of them, really. They could have passed off as normal sharks, if not for the otherworldly glow around each of them and the translucent trails they left behind. They were coming straight at them - it seemed to Maui that a couple of them were making a point of cutting in in front of the others - and it only took moments before one of them reached land, its form shifting and a man’s voice shouting in victory.

“First! As usual. Is it me or you guys are getting slower with each passing century? It felt like racing with old ladies.”

“You cheated, you lump of stupid!”

“Ho-oh, the old lady is a sore loser!”

“You kept cutting us off!”

“Like _you_ didn’t, Pae. And you still came, what, fourth? Ah well. At least you weren’t dead last. Hey, Roto. Took you a while. Did you get lost on the way?”

“Taha, are we really going to start this aga--”

“All right, get out of the way, all of you. I’ve had to look at your mugs for thousands of years. I’ve got a new brother to get sick and tired of, if you don’t min--”

“I was under the impression I’d asked the lot of you not to come,” Tarange spoke out, and there was an edge to her voice that very nearly caused Maui to cringe. There was something downright scary there, and he found himself thinking he wasn’t really looking forward to ever being on the receiving end of it.

Those who _were_ on the receiving end - four men, all of them almost as broad as himself, and a woman who was taller than at least two of them - immediately fell silent and turned to them, moving as one like trained dolphins.

“Well--”

“We were about to stay behind, but then Mua said--”

“Hey! Don’t go blaming me! We were all in this!”

There was a groan, and the woman - Hina, was that how his sister was called? - rolled her eyes. “Really?” she muttered, and took a step forward. “You can’t have expected us to really stay behind, Ma. Not for one moment. We’ve sort of been waiting to meet this baby brother for some five thousand of years,” she pointed out, and looked straight at Maui for the first time. The others were staring at him too, now, and while Maui was used to undivided attention, it was enough to make him uncomfortable now. So he reacted to it in the only way he knew: with cockyness.

“Well, was I worth the wait?” he asked, spreading his arms with a grin - never mind how much of him sort of dreaded a negative answer. He inwardly hoped that they wouldn’t notice Mini Maui sobbing away on his chest, with Mini Moana patting his back, and that they’d rather focus on the epic feats depicted on his skin. However, Hina seemed to notice none of it. She stared at him in the eye and raised an eyebrow, but a smile was already tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“I’d been hoping for a baby sister, really. But a shape shifter, demigod of wind and the sea, hero of Men and whatnot?” Her face split in a grin. “I’d say that’s the next best thing.”

Later, Maui wouldn’t be sure which one of them had reached for him first; there was a blur of motion and a moment later he’d found himself on the sand, all breath knocked out of him, tackled by what felt like five dozen people instead of just five amongst gales of laughter.

“Oof!”

“Look at this! We looked for you across the Underworld, and you were up here all along!”

“Pulling off the stuff of legends!”

“And getting all the girls, I bet!”

“You left me behind as the youngest brother! The butt of all jokes! That should have been you, you know!”

“Haha! Good look making him the butt of all jokes now! Tagaloa, look at you!”

“Hey, what was that about you lifting the sky?”

“And slowing down the sun?”

“You’re gonna have to tell us everything!”

“And Taha thought he was so great because he got a whale once!”

“Well, it was a big whale!”

“Wait until we tell everybody about this!”

“If you think there’s a lot of us now, wait until you meet everyone else!”

“Yeah, there’s our grandmother wanting to meet you, and then our kids, and their kids, and their kids--”

“There was also a guy called Vailele and his wife, I think she’s my great grandkid or something, and they told us to tell you they said hi...”

“Like, half the Underworld wanted to come see you!”

The tackle had long since turned into a messy group hug, and by the time Maui let go of them they were all covered in sand, half-laughing and half-crying while pretending the latter was only caused by the sand. Standing a few feet away, Taranga shook her head - not without reaching to wipe her eyes as well first. “Kids,” she muttered, and then frowned. “... By the way, where’s your father?” she asked, only to get a few confused look.

“Wait, wasn’t dad with you?”

“We assumed he was with you.”

“No, _I_ assumed he was with you.”

“See, so you were expecting us to turn up!”

“All right, but where’s dad?”

“... Huh, do you think that may be him?”

Pae’s question caused all of them to glance out and sea, which was now almost completely dark. And, in that darkness, Maui could just see something translucent moving in circles, then turning north, then going back and lingering for a few moments before turning west and start swimming again… towards another island.

Behind Maui, there was a collective groan.

“Yep,” Hina muttered. “His sense of direction still sucks.”

Taranga sighed. “Roto, be a dear and go fetch your father before he becomes lost.”

“Uugh, why does it always have to be me? Can’t someone else--” he began, but Hina smacked him in the chest suddenly, and with enough strength to throw him back into the sea with a yelp. His form returned to the likeness of a shark the moment he touched water.

“You heard the boss. Go get dad.”

The shark went without further arguments - though he did raise more splashes than necessary with his tail in their general direction - and Mua looked at Maui with a grin. “The old man’s gonna have a heart attack when he sees you,” he said. Maui raised and eyebrow.

“Can that actually happen after you’re dead?” he asked, doing his best to ignore how his heart was beating somewhere in his throat at the thought of seeing his father as well - someone who looked so much like him, if what his mother had said was true.

Unaware of his thoughts, his siblings shrugged. “We can find out,” Taha muttered, glaring himself a glare from their mother.

“I’d rather you don’t,” she muttered, but her voice was drowned out by Pae’s.

“Hey, shouldn’t there be a magical fishhook? Everyone always mentioned you had one.”

“Right! Is it true that you can shapeshift with it?”

Maui laughed. “Oh, you bet it is!” he exclaimed, turning back the way he’d come. The hook was exactly where he’d dropped it. “Give me a second to pick it up, and I’ll show you!”

Over the centuries and millennia, Maui had impressed thousands of humans with his feats; but he had been aware, deep down, that the ones he had _truly_ wanted to impress were far beyond his reach. Now they were there, at the end of a long road that had led him right back where his life had begun, and he knew that he didn’t _need_ to impress any of them. They had come so far to meet him again, and they would have done so even if he were not, well. Maui.

Still, he _was_ Maui… and he may as well treat his family to a little show, after going almost literally through hell and back in order to find them.

So he went to pick up his hook and turned back to them, and to the two silvery beings that were heading back towards the beach. When he lifted it above his head, he could feel himself thrumming with energy in a way he never had, a weightlessness in his chest he’d never felt. He held onto his hook - still an extension of himself, no longer his crutch - more tightly, and smirked.

_It’s Maui time._

* * *

“All right, all right, here’s the deal: I do it one more time, and then that’s it. Then lot of you goes to bed before your parents here have an aneurysm, because I’m _not_ gonna be held responsible for that. Deal?”

“Deal!”

“Hey, you in the back! I saw you crossing your fingers! No crossing!”

“C’mon!”

“Look! No crossing!”

“Just do the thing! Pretty please?”

Ah well, Tamatoa supposed that he should relent, since his adoring public was asking so nicely. He grinned, and turned on his bioluminescence. It was a moonless night, and it easily outshone the few fires on the shore, getting some pretty loud cheering out of the kids. Humans sure were _easy_ to impress - no wonder Maui got their adoration in no time at all. Had he known how that would turn out, he’d have followed his example way earlier.

“All right, that was it. Enough for the day,” Tamatoa said, and turned off his bioluminescence, causing a disappointed groan and a few protests before they gave in began following the adults back to the village. Truth be told he could have kept that up all night, except that he hadn’t seen Maui and Moana anywhere for a while and was wondering where they had gone. They hadn’t even heard his song, and that was a shame because it was great, if he said so himself. Humans had loved it, nodding so fast when he’d asked that for a moment he’d wondered if it would be possible for their heads to fall off their necks.

The adults hadn’t asked for him to sing again, but the kids had wanted to hear it two more times and even tried to sing along with questionable results, so he supposed humans got shy as they aged. It was the only explanation he could think of. Moana was probably an exception. But really, where had she disappeared to? Maybe he should go looking for--

“Hey,” Moana’s voice rang out suddenly, causing him to recoil. He hadn’t heard her coming at all, and he had to squint a bit to see her in the faint light of the fires on the shore.

“Human! Here you are! I was wondering where you went. You missed-- wait, is that Pilifeai on your shoulder? And where’s Maui? Has he gone off again without even saying goodbye? Because that would be _really_ rude and--”

“He hasn’t gone anywhere. At least I don’t think so,” Moana cut him off. “It’s just… his mother came to find him. I figured I should give them some time alone.”

“Oh,” Tamatoa muttered. Taken as he’d been with the tiny humans - he couldn’t remember ever having that much company in his life, really - he’d completely forgotten what both he and Maui had been waiting for. He instinctively turned back, were the profile of a cliff was barely visible in the dark. Long ago, it had been much higher than that… until a good chunk of it had collapsed on his mother, of course.

Once again, Moana seemed to guess exactly what was going through his mind. “That’s where she died, isn’t it?”

“... Yeah. Right by the cave we lived in.”

“What are you doing still here, then? She could show up any moment, and it’s a long way from the Underworld. It would be rather rude of you to make her wait,” Pilifeai muttered, and Tamatoa had to admit he kind of had a point.

“Right,” he said, but he didn’t move. He turned back to the human, trying to ignore the stab of nervousness. “What if she’s not coming?”

She tilted her head on one side, clearly taken aback. “What? Why wouldn’t she?”

“Because… because… I don’t know. What if she doesn’t show up?”

“Then she misses out. But I’m sure she’ll know better. If she came here all the way from Lalotai when she was alive for your sake, then--”

“But she could have come earlier, right? And Gran, too. _Your_ grandmother came back for you. Why didn’t they? They knew where I was. I stayed here for a long time,” Tamatoa asked, but of course he knew that the human couldn’t possibly have an answer to that. He would have to ask his mother when she showed up. _If_ she showed up. How long should he wait before he decided she just was not going to--

“Tamatoa! Look!”

He turned just in time to see exactly what she was pointing at: there was something out at sea, something translucent moving beneath the surface and heading straight where the entrance to the cave was. It disappeared from sight only moments later, hidden by one of the sides of the cliff, but it was enough for him to guess exactly what was it he’d just seen.

“Well,” Pilifeai spoke up the next moment, still sprawled across Moana’s shoulders. “Looks like you’ve got a visitor after all, you dense crustacean. Go and ask her. And possibly let me know what she said, because I’m dying to know more and the human here is a complete spoilsport.”

“Oh, am I?”

“I stand by what they said.”

“Looks like someone is going to stay this size for a while longer.”

“Uuugh. I hate you. And what are you staring at, crab? Are you going or not? Because--”

“Moana? Are you there?”

A man’s voice rang out, causing Moana to turn and Pilifeai to immediately hide under her hair. If he squinted, Tamatoa could see the shadow of someone standing not too far away from one of the fires.

“Coming, dad,” she called back, and reached to give Tamatoa’s pincer a pat. “Come on, just go. Don’t make her wait.”

“But…” Tamatoa paused, unable to voice the thought that had crossed his mind - _what if she doesn’t like what she sees?_ \- but of course Moana guessed exactly what he was thinking. She always did. He was starting to wonder if it was magic, or if he was just that predictable.

“No buts. I’m sure she’ll be so happy to see you.”

“I… well, of course she’ll be happy to see me! Who wouldn’t right?” Tamatoa muttered, huffing. “I was just… nevermind. I’m going. I’ll uh… see you in the morning,” he added quickly, and turned back to walk into the ocean before he lost his nerve.

He still remembered the way to his old cave very well, so much so that he needed no light to guide him as he walked across the ocean floor towards it. And it wasn’t a very long walk either but, for some reason, it seemed to stretch on for a long time.

* * *

“He just kept singing! We thought it would never end! Please, tell me this is not something he does _all_ the time!”

Moana tried to ignore the way Pilifeai was snickering while hidden beneath her hair - she would need to have a very convincing talk with him later, to make sure he wouldn’t report that conversation to Tamatoa - and smiled a little sheepishly.

“Well, no _all_ the time,” she said a bit tentatively. “Just… often, if given the chance. But if it helps, it’s easy to distract him. If he’s about to sing, diverting his attention on something else usually works. Show him something shiny, talk to him about something else entirely. He’d probably like that. He hasn’t had much company until now.”

Her father gave a long sigh of relief. “Oh, thank the gods,” he muttered. Beside him, her mother looked equally relieved. “I’ll let the others know. I don’t think we can withstand another day like this.”

“Oh, come on! I can’t have been that bad!” Moana said, getting a deadpan look from her mother.

“The children kept going on singing for hours after he stopped. Hours.”

“... Ah. Well, they’re kids. You know,” she said, inwardly thankful Maui had taken her to the other side of the island the moment Tamatoa had announced he’d start singing. Speaking of Maui, Moana though, he still wasn’t back. Was he still with his mother, or had she left? Maybe he needed some time on his own. And maybe so would Tamatoa, after it was all said and do--

“Well. I suppose the fact he saved your life is a good reason to be patient… if that is indeed what happened,” her father’s voice rang out, causing Moana to cringe. She’d almost forgotten how she hadn’t told them all the details of the journey to her people, and now she got a distinct feeling Tamatoa had done just that. In song form.

“Right. About that, there were… a couple of close calls,” she admitted, fervently hoping Tamatoa hadn’t gone into too much detail.

Fat chance.

“You actually went and _threw a rock_ at the goddess of Death?”

 _Among other things,_ Moana thought, but she knew better than saying as much aloud. “I had sort of ran out of options to catch her attention. But all went well,” she added quickly, causing her father to groan and her mother to sigh before she reached to take her hand.

“Moana. Do you think you can just… stay with us on the island for a time? Maybe a few turns of the moon without getting involved with deranged deities?” she asked, a hopeful note in her voice. In the flickering light of the fire they were sitting around, Moana really noticed for the first time how tired she looked, like she hadn’t gotten a full night of sleep in a while.

But of course she hadn’t: despite Moana’s efforts to sugarcoat it, it had been clear that the journey she was getting into could be very dangerous, because at sea any shift of the weather can become deadly. Of course they had worried for her: that was what parents do. How many times had they looked out at sea, hoping to see her boat at the horizon?

Trying to ignore a slight pang of guilt, Moana smiled and held back her hand. “Of course. I love being here with all of you. I’m sorry I ran off again so quickly. I missed you a lot.”

“Oh, dear. We missed you too, so much.”

“Awww!”

“... What was that?”

“What was what?” Moana asked innocently, casually reaching back to give Pilifeai a sharp poke through her hair. The lizard was smart enough to mute the resulting yelp.

“I thought I heard--”

“I didn’t hear a thing. Dad, tell me how things have been going! I have yet to see so much of this new island. How are you getting on with the harvest?”

“Rather well, actually! We found this spot just east from here that was perfect. I’ll show you first thing in the morning. Actually, I’d like to hear your opinion on this...”

* * *

“If you want my opinion--”

“But I don’t _want_ your opinion! I have never in my life _or_ death asked for your opinion! Why are you so obsessed with giving it anyway?”

“There’s no need to be rude. I’m sure he’ll be here, sooner or later. Unless he forgot where the Manaia told him to wait, or forgot where this island even is, or is stuck somewhere because he saw something shiny and his attention span is what it is. I would put none of it past him.”

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of my son holding off Hine-Nui-Te-Po. And remind me again which one of you went to have a stroll on an undersea volcano.”

“Hmph. Now _that_ was uncalled for - that volcano had been inactive for so long I had no idea it was even one. And before you get too smug, may I remind you..."

Whatever his grandmother said next was lost to Tamatoa, because he was not listening, not really. Standing in shallow water, shrouded in darkness, he could only stare at the departed spirits of his mother and grandmother, bickering only steps away from the entrance of the cave he’d been brought up in.

Otherworldly spirit glow thing aside, his grandmother - had she just invited herself over? But _of course_ she had, it was the sort of thing she’d do - was everything like he remembered her: even more massive than himself, her shell darker than his own and mottled with black, looking all the world like she’d been cut out of stone. What he couldn’t tear his eyes from, however, was his mother.

He had very vague memories of her; it had been so long. If he focused, he remembered vaguely her bioluminescence in the dark, the occasional nudge from her antennae, and little else. Now he could tell that yes, she was smaller than he was now, her skin and shell several shades lighter. Her pincers were entirely missing, the skin heavily scarred where her arms should have been - if that could be called skin, really, because he wasn’t really sure what spirits were made of. They made ripples in the water as they moved, though, so he supposed they had to be sort of corporeal. Maybe he should ask.

He would have, if only he could make himself speak. Instead, he took a hesitant step forward - and one of his legs slipped on an unstable boulder beneath the water, causing him to stagger for a moment and raise splashes of water.

“... And besides I didn’t see _you_ making it to my ag-- huh? Who’s there?”

His grandmother suddenly turned in his direction, eyes narrowing to see through the dark, causing Tamatoa to inwardly cringe. For one absurd moment, it felt like he’d been caught with his pincers in the clam jar all over again.

“I know someone is there!” she spoke up again, and took a couple of steps forward. “Tamatoa? Is that you?”

Tamatoa opened his mouth to croak a ‘yes’, but he stopped himself just on time, frowning. Wait a moment, he thought, that wasn’t right. He was supposed to make a cool entry, wasn’t he? Something impressive. Why had he just rushed to the meeting point without thinking? He could at least have come up with something to say, or maybe even a musical number. Really, just showing up like that would make a really bad first impression. He had to think of something impressive to say or do, and he couldn’t think of _anything_ to say, so he did the only thing he could think of on the spot: he turned on his bioluminescence.

In the moonless night it seemed even brighter than usual; it was enough to make them pause and stare, which made him feel just a touch smug. Alright, maybe a bit more than a touch. Except that his mother spoke after a moment, and the smugness disappeared because yes, the light show was great and all, but he still had _no idea_ what to say.

“... Tamatoa?” she called out, taking a few steps towards him.

_All right, all right. Don’t panic. Play it cool._

“Yeah. I mean, of course! Who else could it be? I am… the only one left, right? Unless some other dead crab is out and about, I guess, but I never saw any around, so while it’s not technically impossible… huh. I mean. Yeah. That’d be me,” he babbled, mentally kicking himself for sounding like a complete idiot. Then his mother stopped in front of him, and it took him a conscious effort not to step back.

_What if she doesn’t like what she sees?_

_I’m sure she’ll be so happy to see you._

For a few, unnerving moments, she just stared; she had to look up to him, but somehow Tamatoa still felt really, _really_ small. Then her antennae were touching his face - the touch was really odd, sort of corporeal and sort of not, but definitely there - and the wide-eyed look faded into a grin that looked oddly familiar.

“Oh, look at you!” she exclaimed, sounding absolutely delighted, and took a few steps back. “You’re a lot bigger than your father ever was!”

“That _might_ be because you ate that idiot when he was half his age. Like most most males who actually mated,” Tupuna’s voice rang out somewhere behind her, but she seemed to take absolutely no notice: she was already circling Tamatoa, as though to properly size him up. She paused for a moment, and frowned.

“What happened to your leg?”

“Ah. That, er… that was lost in battle. But I won in the end! Absolutely!” he added quickly, and the grin was back on his mother’s face like it had never faded. She turned to look at his grandmother, her face the very picture of smugness. That, too, looked eerily familiar.

“Hah! So much for being a runt, huh, mother?”

There was a sigh, and Tamatoa turned to see Tupuna approaching. Her glow turned the water around her to molten silver. “Fine, fine. I get it. I was wrong,” she conceded, and turned to look at him before uttering the closest thing to a compliment she was capable to think up. “I have to admit, you _did_ get quite a bit bigger than I thought you ever would.”

“And look at the pincers - he could grind every single crab I’ve met to dust!”

“I, er… thanks? I mean - of course I could!” Tamatoa immediately corrected himself, and grinned. With the sense of wonder fading, he found he really liked how that meeting was going. “Shame there aren’t any around for me to show it, but I’ve been keeping myself busy. You know, slowing down the sun, beating up the occasional monster, the occasional demon, a goddess, things like that. I usually do that on Tuesdays, but--”

“All right, enough. Don’t go too far, Tinytoa,” his grandmother cut him off, and sneered at his offended look. “Oooh, look at that. You still pout like you used to.”

“I’m not pouting! And… and I’m not tiny! Come on!”

“Hah! And you still say the same thing, too. But this old lady is still bigger than you are, you know,” she pointed out, flicking her antennae at him like she used to in life. “Plus, I am your grandmother. I get to call you whatever I want.”

“But--”

“No buts. Don’t talk back to your grandmother, kid.”

“I am five thousand years old!”

“Cute. We’ll talk about this again when you’re past fifteen-thousand.”

_“Mom!”_

“Oh, stop teasing him,” his mother muttered, rolling her eyes. “Keep that for Ngaire, Ngaio and just about everyone else.”

“Hmm. Fair enough. Shame we didn’t bump into them on our way out, because I’d have loved to have a few words with them before leaving.”

… Wait. Tamatoa had heard those names before. “What, you mean those two old hags I met at Manawa-Tane?” he asked, causing Tīaka to snort.

“Yes, them. They sauntered down in the Underworld, pleasant as eels stuck between one’s teeth, talking complete nonsense about how I should have tried for another clutch. I can’t wait to mention to them what you’ve--”

“So it _was_ nonsense, right?”

Tamatoa had blurted out the question without thinking, and found himself trying to shrink a little when both of them paused and turned to look at him, blinking as though they had just heard him speaking in a foreign language. “I-I mean… what they said about, you know…” Tamatoa paused, making a vague gesture with his claw. “How you should have, uh, discarded me and… that I was kind of a waste? I mean, of course I know they were absolutely wrong, you know, never doubted it for a moment! But I was wondering, if you agree… well. You agree, right? That it wasn’t true at all?”

For a moment, Tīaka just stared at him in silence. Finally, her eyes narrowed. “Is that _precisely_ what they said?”

“Uh… yes. They also called you an idiot.”

“... They’re dead.”

Tupuna snorted. “Of course they’re dead. We all are.”

“You know what I mean,” her daughter said drily, and looked back at Tamatoa. “Wait. You didn’t _believe_ that, did you?”

“Wha-- nooo, absolutely not!” Tamatoa immediately protested, trying to ignore the unpleasant feeling that she could read the truth on his face, clear as day. “I _know_ I’m absolutely amazing, so why should I believe them?” he added, and grinned, pointing at himself with a bioluminescent claw. “They were probably just jealous of all this magnificence.”

His grandmother sighed. “Oh gods, he _does_ take after his father. Your looks and his brains,” she muttered, earning himself an unimpressed look from her daughter. Still, it was on Tamatoa that Tīaka turned her attention to, taking a few steps closer.

“All right. I want you to listen now and listen well, because I’m only going to say this once,” she said, and something about her stare seemed to glue Tamatoa on the spot. For the second time in minutes he felt very, very small. “I am dead, our entire species is gone - but _you_ are here and I’m not even remotely sorry. My _only_ regret is that I was unable to save your siblings as well. That is all. If I could go back to having no claws and just one hatched egg, I’d do everything I have done all over aga-- no, scratch that. I probably wouldn’t have gone out on a stroll that day if I’d known a cliff would crash down on me. But as far as you’re concerned, there is _nothing_ I would change. Is that clear?”

Tamatoa opened his mouth, but for a moment he was unable to speak. His eyes turned towards his grandmother, who shrugged. “What she said,” she muttered curtly. That was probably as far as she’d go with reassurances, but it was already a lot more than Tamatoa would have expected from the old battle axe, and he supposed it would do. He looked back at his mother and swallowed a couple of times before he could croak an answer.

“Crystal,” he replied, and his mother’s expression melted in a grin.

“Great,” she said, one antenna ficking at his own. “With that out of the way, we have a lot to catch up with. What _have_ you been up to?”

Well, now that was going to take a while to get through. Good thing, Tamatoa thought, that he was _really_ good at talking about himself for hours on end.

And he did talk for hours, through the entire night right until dawn, trying his best to recall all of his coolest moments and maybe exaggerate a detail or two. His grandmother hardly interrupted him - nothing short of a miracle, really - while his mother listened to each word with rapt attention, just the kind of attention he liked.

It would be only later, when both of them had left to return to the Underworld with the promise to visit again, that Tamatoa realized something: taken as they were by _him,_ neither of them seemed to have even noticed the gold embedded in his shell.


	20. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the end - about time we got here, too, after some ten months! This fic got a lot longer than it was supposed to be. I can only hope the read was worth it. Thanks a lot to everyone who’s been reading/reviewing/kudo-ing this!

Moana had learned, very quickly, that her dad was a heavy sleeper. He didn’t seem fall asleep like everyone else did; rather, he fell unconscious. He would always awaken little after dawn but, until then, the skies falling down wouldn’t be enough to make him crack one eye open. By the age of six, Moana knew she could stomp all the way from her bed to the door without him stirring.

People often joked that he simply couldn’t hear anything over his own snoring, and that was a good point, because it seemed to work for Moana’s mom as well: she was used enough to it to sleep through it, and the noise her husband made kept her from hearing anything else.

Like, say, the steps of a child sneaking outside.

Moana knew that her dad wouldn’t want her to sneak out at night, let alone to get to the shore, so she always took care to be very quiet, just in case. However, as soon as she was out, she’d just start running as fast as her legs could carry her - and that was real fast, she was getting faster and faster the more she grew, and she knew her island so well that the almost complete darkness was not a problem at all - until she was standing before the ocean, out of breath but grinning from ear to ear.

She heard the ocean rather than seeing  it, without the moon in the sky to turn its waves into threads of silver; there were nights when the shore was alight with bioluminescence, but that wasn’t one of those night, either. It didn’t really matter: she knew it was there, and it only took a few steps for her to be in the water to her knees. With the darkness hiding the sheer expanse of it, it was easier to imagine that whatever could be found beyond the reef - beyond the horizon - was within her reach, if she only swam for it, or knew how to sail.

There had to be other islands, just like her own. Maybe other people, looking at the horizon like she did every day and wondering what lay beyond it; maybe they had tales of their own, like the people of Motunui had theirs. Gramma Tala had said there were monsters, too, but she was not afraid. If she had a boat, a _fast_ boat, she could glide over the water and they would never catch--

“Isn’t it a bit late for you to be out here?”

Moana recoiled, nearly losing her balance, when a very familiar voice spoke behind her. She turned and, while she could barely make out the figure standing a few steps from her, there was no mistaking who it belonged to.

“Gramma! You scared me!”

Her grandmother laughed, and stepped closing, causing the water to splash gently. “You’ll never need to be afraid as long as you’re anywhere near the sea,” she said, and put a hand in her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Don’t tell your father I said that, though,” she added, causing Moana to grin.

“It will be a secret!”

“Sure it will be. Like all of your little trips to the shore. Do you think you’re _that_ quiet, running through the night like a wild boar?” she added, and Moana’s grin turned sheepish, even though she knew her grandmother couldn’t see it.

“Oh. Did I wake you up?”

“No, no. Your father’s snoring kept me from falling asleep, all the way to my home,” she added, and Moana burst in giggles.

“No, it didn’t! It’s not that loud!”

“But I am keen of hearing,” her grandmother pointed out. “There, did you hear that?”

“I heard nothing.”

“Not if you keep talking, dear,” she replied, and she crouched down in the water, her arm still around Moana’s shoulders. “Listen closely. If you try, I’m sure you can hear it too.”

Moana strained her ears to listen, and she did catch sounds - the waves, a few birds, splashing fish and a sound in the distance that might have been… wait, was that…?

“Is that a whale blowing?” she whispered in awe, trying and failing to see something in the pool of blackness that was the sea around them. Her grandmother chuckled, very quietly.

“I believe it is, yes. Not quite what I was referring to, but fascinating nonetheless.”

Moana frowned, some confusion replacing the awe. “Wait, then what was it I should hear?”

“Oh, never mind. You’ll know. You feel it all right, but you can’t quite _hear_ it yet.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re trying too hard to listen.”

“But you told me to listen!”

“Listen to the village Crazy Lady, is what you did. What were you expecting?” Gramma Tala retorted, ruffling her hair, and Moana laughed.

“You’re not crazy. You tell the best stories!”

“I am, and _that_ is why I tell the best stories,” Gramma Tala replied, and picked her up. Moana reached to wrap an arm around her neck, leaning her cheek on her shoulder. “Oof! Getting heavy, aren’t you? One day I won’t be able to pick you up anymore, but I won’t let it stop me. Then my spine will snap like a twig and you’ll have to use coconut glue to put me back together.”

The thought of gluing her grandma back together was funny in an odd sort of way, and Moana laughed. “No, you won’t!”

“Oh, you’ll see. Enjoy it as long as I can pick you up,” Gramma Tala said, starting to walk back towards the beach. Moana learned more comfortably against her, her free hand closing on the necklace her grandmother always had around her neck. It was smooth to the touch and so pretty, even though she couldn’t see it very well now.

Her grandmother noticed, and chuckled. “You like that necklace, don’t you? It’s more precious than you know. It will be yours, one day,” she added, causing Moana to frown.

“Why? Don’t you want to keep it?”

“For as long as it’s needed, yes,” was the reply. It was an odd reply, really, but then again most things her grandmother said were odd, and she put her down on the sand before she could ask, reaching to take her hand instead. “Now, you come to my place and we’ll have a bit of a snack, just the two of us. I’ll tell you a story and then you’re going back home to your parents before your father wakes up, sees you’re gone and drops dead. I don’t know who that boy took after. Not me, that’s for sure.”

“But he _wouldn’t_ really drop dead, right?”

“Oh, of course not. Don’t believe everything this old lady says. But the stories I tell you, those you had better to believe…”

* * *

“Aren’t you a bit old to be sneaking out of home at night?”

Her grandmother’s voice was unexpected, but far from unwelcome. Moana, who had just reached the shore - after leaving her bed silently, yes, and leaving a snoozing lizard hidden under her pillow, but hadn’t _precisely_ sneaked out - turned back from the dark sea. Gramma Tala was sitting on a rock just behind her, her feet in the water and an eyebrow raised, a glow of light in darkness. Moana held back a grin and returned her the look with a cocked eyebrow of her own.

“I am just taking a look at the new island. Last time I _did_ sneak out, it was you to tell me to do it. To find Maui, grab him by the ear, drag him all the way across the horizon and so on,” she pointed out, causing Gramma Tala to chuckle.

“Ah, fair enough. You did all that this old lady expected of you and more,” she said, patting the free space on the rock next to her. Moana took the silent invitation and sat by her.

“I may have gotten a _little_ help along the way,” she pointed out, and her grandmother smiled.

“And you returned the favor swiftly, I see,” was the reply. An arm, sort of solid and sort of not, rested across her shoulders. It felt good, though, and she leaned into the touch. “I met his family on the way here, you know. Lovely people. A bit on the wild side, his siblings. It must run in the family.”

Siblings? Well, that was new. Maui must be delighted, she thought, and was about to say as much, but her grandmother spoke first.

“I hadn’t expected you to be thrown into something so big right after returning home, but perhaps I should have. Unpredictable things do happen when Maui the trickster is involved,” she added, and then paused. “... The crab was a surprise, too.”

Moana couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Oh, definitely,” she said, then reached to put a hand on her grandmother’s own. They shared a few moments of peaceful silence before Moana spoke again. “Thank you for leading me to him when I was lost. I would have never made it to Cape Reinga otherwise.”

“Oh, you’re welcome. I could have led you there myself, but then what? I am but a spirit, and I could have given you no help. Someone alive was better suited to watch your back. Especially if fifty feet tall and with claws the size of a couple of boats. I can’t say I’m pleased that he tried to eat you but it’s good to see he knows how to pay a debt, at least.”

The memory of what had happened - the horrible crunch as Tamatoa’s shell gave in, his scream, the blood oozing out of ragged wounds - was almost unbearable. Tamatoa had almost paid the ultimate price to save her and Maui, and he didn’t _have_ to. “He owed me nothing,” Moana pointed out, causing Gramma Tala to raise an eyebrow at her again.

“Oh, please. He owes you as much as Maui does; anyone with half a brain would know, so even he must have realized it,” she added, and ran a thumb over the seashell necklace Moana had inherited from her. “You know what _I_ realized? What it is that makes you different from any other wayfinder that there ever was and will ever be. I don’t know if it’s because you were born and raised to lead people or if it’s something that would have been part of you regardless, but either way you do so much more than finding your right course. You help others find their own.”

Gramma Tala pulled back her arm, and the next moment she hands were on either side of Moana’s face, her forehead leaning against hers. “I am so proud of you,” she added, and didn’t seem in the slightest surprised when Moana threw her arms around her. She’d grown taller than her grandmother had been even before the weight of her years began to bend her back, and she didn’t quite feel as solid as she had in life, and yet for a moment she felt all the world like a child again - getting a hug from her grandmother after being caught sneaking out at night by herself to pay the ocean a visit, feeling a pull she wouldn’t understand until years later.

Everything had changed, but so much was still the same. She was on a different island than Motunui, but beneath the same sky and connected by the same ocean, with her family and people on it. She knew the way back, and she knew she could always find her way forward - but, at least for a while, she was exactly where she wished to be.

* * *

“So… they left?”

“Yeah, just before dawn. They said they couldn’t wait to be back and rub it into everyone’s faces. Ma is probably going to brag about me for eternity now - I mean, _of course_ she is. Who wouldn’t brag about having me in the family?”

“I can’t imagine,” Moana replied.

“I can,” Pilifeai said drily. Moana had turned him back his usual size before the rest of her village awoke in exchange for a ride to the entrance of Tamatoa’s old cave, and that annoying lizard had decided to stay and listen, because he was apparently unable to mind his own business.

Tamatoa decided to ignore him entirely - he couldn’t imagine anything worse than being ignored, so that would serve him right - and just replied to the human. “See? Me neither. Actually, you missed them by minutes. They’re going to visit again, though,” he added, and made a face. “I have to admit, it was great and everything, but they argue _so_ much. I zoned every once in a while and if they stayed long I would have gotten a headache. It was like--”

“Listening to you and Maui arguing day in, day out? Now you know what we had to suffer,” Pilifeai muttered, and this time Tamatoa glared at him. So much for ignoring him.

“I don’t remember anybody asking _you_ to tag along to listen,” he pointed out, and he was about to add something on how he should probably scram now when Moana, sitting on a rock barely above the surface of the sea, lifted her hands.

“Guys, don’t start,” she all but ordered before looking back up at Tamatoa. “I do hope they visit again soon. I’d love to meet them,” she added, causing Tamatoa to shift a bit awkwardly. He hadn’t thought of the possibility Moana may meet them, and the idea was a bit uncomfortable because… well…

“Right. Huh… in case that happens, keep in mind that I _miiiight_ have downplayed your role in what happened. And Maui’s. Just a bit,” he said, and shifted again when Moana and the lizard exchanged a glance before turning back at him with a raised eyebrow. Or, in Pilifeai’s case, the ridge of scales he passed off as one. “Don’t look at me like that! It was just--”

“To make yourself look better,” Pilifeai guessed.

“No, not at all!”

Both human and lizard raised the other eyebrow.

“... All right, maybe a little. But it was _mostly_ because I had a lot to tell, and... Storytelling is hard, you know! You’ve got to prioritise,” Tamatoa added, crossing his claws. “And besides, the human doesn’t mind. Er… you _don’t_ mind, right?”

Moana laughed, and stood. “No, I don’t mind at all,” she said. “Just give me a lift to the other side of the island. I want to see if Maui is still there. Maybe his family is--”

_“CHEE-HOO!”_

There was the usual, familiar cry, a large shark jumped out of the water right next to Pilifeai, causing him to yelp in surprise. It changed shape in mid-air, and the next moment Maui landed in a crouch on Tamatoa’s shell, his grin so wide his cheeks just _had_ to be hurting.

“Morning, everybody! Hey, Crabby, how did your family reunion go?”

“Pretty well, really! They-- wait a moment, how do you know they came over tonight? Were you listening to us?”

Maui shrugged. “Nah, I just got here. But my old man said he asked a couple of dead giant crabs for directions to get here, and who else could that be? He said the old one gave him the wrong directions, by the way.”

Tamatoa shrugged. “That _does_ sound like something Gran would do.”

“Hey, to be totally fair, it’s possible he just heard the directions wrong.”

“Yeah, he does that a lot.”

“And we do mean, an _awful_ lot.”

“That is not true! I am certain I heard right! I was given the wrong directions, I tell you!”

“Sure, dad.”

_… Huh?_

Tamatoa blinked and looked ahead to see… well, a bunch of people who hadn’t been there until moments earlier, standing on the rocks just below the surface. A bunch of _dead_ people, if the muted colors and the faint glow were anything to go by. There was a familiar something about all of them, and it was easy to guess who they had to be - especially since the older guy probably looked everything like Maui would have if he’d ever gotten to age. And had taken it a bit easier with tattoos. And lost a fair share of muscle tone on the belly area.

“Enough, boys. Stop teasing your father,” someone spoke up, a woman with short hair who was a good couple of heads taller than Moana was. While Tamatoa didn’t remember what Maui’s mother had looked like, not after so much time, he didn’t need much guesswork to know it had to be her. Plus, she took it upon herself to dispel any possible doubt.

“I suppose you’re the one who took the hairpin while I was burying Maui at sea,” she said, craning her neck to look up at him, and Tamatoa grinned.

“Yep! In the flesh! I saw it there in the sand and you were so busy mourning that you… didn’t even… er…” he paused, suddenly acutely aware of everyone’s quiet gaze on him. And raised eyebrows. He was getting a lot of those that day. “I, uh. That. Wasn’t a nice thing to do, I guess…?” he said slowly, eyestalks shifting slightly towards Moana. She quickly shook her head, and he immediately corrected himself. “I mean, I know! As in, I _know_ it wasn’t a nice thing to do. I, er. Sorry? It looked great, though.”

“I made it!” the guy who was definitely Maui’s father piped in, and Tamatoa grinned at him.

“You did? You’ve got great taste, man! Shame you didn’t pass any down to your kid,” he added, causing Maui to snort and stomp lightly on his shell.

“Thanks, Crabby,” he muttered, and turned to point towards Moana with his fishhook. “Ma, Pa, guys, this is Moana,” he added. With everyone’s attention shifting on her, Moana seemed to recoil a little, but the smile that followed seemed effortless.

“Hi. It’s great to finally meet you.”

“Pleasure’s all ours!”

“Thanks for saving our baby brother’s butt!”

“And fixing his mess!”

“Maui, you didn’t tell us she was also pretty!”

“Taha, you’re much older _and_ dead. Way to be a creep.”

“Don’t mind him, he’s just an idiot.”

Maui’s mother paid no mind to her children, and smiled back at Moana, taking a step forward and reaching to take her hands. “Thank you for being there throughout the journey. He told us so much about you,” she said, and Moana shrugged.

“It was no trouble, really. Well, maybe a _bit_ of trouble,” she added, glancing up at Maui with a lopsided grin. “But that’s what friends are for.”

That caused Maui’s mother to laugh. “In any case, you have my thanks,” she said, and finally turned to her left, where Pilifeai was staring at the scene with wide eyes. She looked straight at him, then frowned. “... I have no idea who you are,” she finally said.

“A creep,” Tamatoa supplied helpfully, causing the giant lizard to glare at him.

“You know, I am starting to regret saving your shell back there.”

“And I regret not snipping off your tongue when I promised I would, but here we are now.”

“Yeah, I second the crab,” Maui said. “This guy has kind of been following us around the ocean for a while. But if he knows what’s good for him, he won’t bother us on our trip,” he added, a threatening note in his voice. Pilifeai scoffed, trying and failing to sound unimpressed, and Tamatoa blinked down at Maui.

“Huh? What trip? Where are you going?” he asked,and it wasn’t Maui to answer: his siblings got there first.

“Wherever we feel like it, really.”

“Yeah, seeing places we knew when we were alive, places we _didn’t_ know…”

“Maui is gonna show us where the sun rests and all that.”

“Bit of a family road trip, some five thousand years late.”

“We just got to make sure dad isn’t allowed to set the course.”

“True, we wouldn’t want to go looking for him in the Underworld again, I hear the Great Lady of the Night doesn’t like Maui very much…”

“Hey now, I’ve never been _that_ wrong…!”

“Ah, no? How about that one time--”

“Taranga! You tell them!”

“... Well. To be _absolutely_ fair, dear…”

Tamatoa decided to ignore the resulting discussion - last thing he wanted was getting caught up into an argument with Maui’s family - and glanced back down to Maui. Moana was doing the same, after climbing up his shell as well. Tamatoa hadn’t felt her doing that at all.

“So, you’re going to travel together?” she was asking. “That’s a wonderful idea!”

Maui grinned. “Yeah. It was a long time coming, which means we’re going to make it well worth the wait. Actually, we’re leaving right now. Would you guys like to come with us?” he asked. Moana seemed to consider that for a couple of moments, then she turned back towards the island, and shook her head.

“I don’t think it’s the best idea right now. I have just come back, my people have just begun settling, and there is so much to do,” she said. “But next time, you can count me in!”

Maui seemed to have expected the answer, and didn’t insist. “You bet I will. I promise I won’t let too much time pass,” he said, giving her a bump on the shoulder, and Moana caught him by surprise by throwing her arms around his neck. On Maui’s chest, Mini Maui burst crying.

“I want to know everything you did when you come back,” she said, and Maui smiled, holding her back - and lifting her up in the process - for a few moments before letting her go.

“I’m sure I’ll have plenty to tell,” he told her, and looked at Tamatoa, who narrowed his eyes.

“Well, _I’m_ not going to hug you,” he informed him, crossing his claws.

“I’d be really worried if you said otherwise,” Maui said. “I take it you’re not coming, either?”

“Naaah. It pains me to deny you the pleasure of my company, I don’t think I’m up for another trip right away. Call me next time if treasure is involved,” he added with a grin, and Maui let out a snorting laugh.

“Hah! I’ll keep an eye out for anything you’d like. So, where do you go from here? Are you staying here, or going back to Lalotai?” he asked, causing Tamatoa to pause. Truth be told, the thought of going back to Lalotai hadn’t crossed his mind again. He knew that was where he was supposed to be, where his entire species came from, but… well, his species was sort of gone. Where they’d lived didn’t really matter anymore and, besides, following into the footprints of an extinct race somehow didn’t strike him as a very sensible thing to do.

“Of course he’s not going back to Lalotai. He doesn’t even like that place,” Pilifeai piped in before Tamatoa could say anything, gaining himself a glare.

“You mind your own business,” he snapped, but his gaze lingered on the entrance to the cave he’d been raised in for a few moments before he looked back down at Maui and the human. Honestly, did they _have_ to stand on his shell? Having to look back at them was starting to make him go slightly cross-eyed. “I could go back to Lalotai, but you know. I wouldn’t want to break the hearts of my new fans.”

Maui and Moana exchanged a quick look before turning back to him.

“Well, _of course_ you wouldn’t,” Maui said.

“I’m sure the kids are going to be delighted,” she added, and Tamatoa nodded.

“Of course. Who wouldn’t be?” he said approvingly. “I was right to say you’re the smart o--”

“Hey, Maui! Are we going or not?”

“You said you were gonna race us - not chickening out, are you?”

“You know, if you’d met the chicken _I_ have met, you wouldn’t be using that as an insult. But fine, let me make you eat my salt water,” Maui yelled back, and lifted his hook before turning to smirk at them. “See you soon, guys. Tell your people I’ll be back. CHEE-HOO!”

Maui’s shark form was in the water before either of them could say anything, and in the blink of an eye so was his family; Maui’s mother was the only one to turn back and mouth a ‘thank you’ before her translucent form changed into something else and then disappeared underwater, leaving a trail behind as it followed the others. From what Tamatoa could tell, Maui was already ahead of everyone else. Go figure. He always had to show o--

“Oh, don’t even _think_ about following.”

“No, wait--”

_“Iti haere.”_

“Uuuugh! You and that convenient gadget of yours are really starting to get on my nerves!”

Moana paid no mind to Pilifeai’s protest - his voice was a _lot_ easier to ignore when he was so tiny - and just picked him up before looking up at Tamatoa. “Mind to give me a lift back to the village? My father must be wondering where I went. He was going to show me something about the harvest.”

“Sure! Got to greet my fans, too,” Tamatoa said. “They said they’d keep looking for stuff to put on my shell. Most of it isn’t even shiny, but it’s not _too_ bad, I guess.”

“Well, it’s the thought that counts. That’s how we see it, anyway.”

“Pfft, humans. You’re weird, you know that?”

“I think there’s something to be said for our way to see the world. Maybe we’ll rub off you, if you stay long enough,” she said, sitting down on Tamatoa’s shell as he began making his way back towards the village, careful to walk in shallow enough water so that she wouldn’t get wet. “I’m glad you’re not going back to Lalotai.”

“You are? I mean- _of course_ you are!” Tamatoa grinned, turning his eyestalks towards her.

Moana smiled up at him, paying absolutely no mind to the angry muttering coming from the red lizard in her arms. “Did you miss this island when you were there?”

“Maybe a bit,” Tamatoa admitted, and held back from shrugging only because she may have fallen in the water if he did. “I mean, if you or Maui are having a trip, I won’t deny you the pleasure of my company. But other than that...” he paused, and glanced at the familiar island for a few moment before nodding. “Yeah, other than that, I think I’ll stay for a while.”

‘A while’ turned into months, months into years, then decades and then a century or two. And, the occasional journey aside, Tamatoa stayed.

* * *

“Where are we?”

“Which way do we go?”

“I… I don’t know! I can’t see a thing!”

“Where on earth did all _this_ even come from?”

The storm had been upon their boat suddenly had unexpectedly, catching them halfway through their journey from Motunui as they returned from an exchange of goods which had, quite quickly, turned into a welcome party.

They had ties to the people living in all islands known, but their bond with Motunui was stronger than any other: they shared a common ancestry, from back when Moana the Wayfinder had taught her people how to be voyagers again and had taken some of them to make new islands their home. The people of Otemanu had never forgotten where they came from - not that they could do so even if they’d wanted to, with Motunui’s people reminding them as much at every chance they got, like annoying but affectionate older siblings.

It was playful banter for the most part, but sometimes one couldn’t help but wonder if they were jealous of the fact it was Otemanu, and not Motunui, to be home to a being who had been so highly regarded by Chief Moana herself. Maybe--

“HANG ON TIGHT!”

The warning cry was almost lost in the midst of the storm; Lasalo could barely hear it through the crashing waves, the roar of thunder, the groaning wood, his own blood rushing in his ears. But hear it he did, and he didn’t even waste time turning to see the wave about to crash down on their boat: he just paid heed to Lupelele’s warning, like everybody else on board, and just reached for a rope to cling to.

It was not enough. The wave that crashed down on him tore the rope away from his grip, burning his palms, and threw him off the boat into the raging ocean. It was not the first time he was thrown off board, and not the first time it had happened in the middle of a storm, so Lasalo did not allow himself to panic. He stayed calm, so that he could see where the surface was - many would just desperately try to swim right away, wasting precious energy without realizing that they were actually swimming towards the bottom - and then, only then, swam up to the surface. He was a good swimmer, and he broke through it within moments, drawing in a gulp of air. The boat was right by, and he only needed to--

A wave crashed against the boat’s side suddenly, and Lasalo could do nothing to avoid the oar that suddenly swung towards him and hit the unprotected side of his head with a dull _thud,_ causing everything to suddenly become muted. He heard, distantly, someone calling out his name; he saw through a daze a hand reaching out for him, but it was too far. Everything was so far away, the thunders and the rain, the screams and Lupelele’s hand. He had no strength to try reaching back for her, and he sank beneath the waves.

Under the surface, everything was so quiet. His mind oddly empty, Lasalo opened his eyes to see the darkness beneath. Was that the end? If so, it wasn’t so bad. All he had to do was stop holding his breath, just let the water in, and then-- then-- wait, was that…?

A form came from the darkness beneath, swimming fast, and the daze in Lasalo’s mind suddenly cleared, some more air escaping his mouth in a silent cry. Few things can give one the same jolt fear does, and few things are quite as terrifying as watching a shark swimming straight at you… closer and closer, barings its teeth and ready to… to… smile? Was that shark _smiling_ at him? Was he dreaming it?

It was a question that remained without an answer, because the next moment the shark did something else that it was definitely not supposed to do: it began pushing him up towards the surface, so fast that Losalo had barely enough time to realize what was going on. Next thing he knew someone was grabbing his arm and pulling him up and then there was the air in his lungs, the wooden boards beneath him, the rain pouring down on him, and Lupelele’s arms around him. “I hope _that_ wasn’t an attempt to walk out of the engagement,” she heard her saying, half-laughing and half-crying with fright, and it was only then that the sense of unreality seemed to fade.

“The shark,” Losalo managed. “It brought me up to the surface. How… why…” he began, but trailed off when Lupelele let go of him.

“We need to get out of this storm. Don’t stand, hold onto the mast. We’ll be fine, I promise.”

Losalo did as she’d told him to do, his head still throbbing, and looked around. The others on the boat were doing their best to keep going despite the waves and howling wind, but the true problem was that they didn’t know where to head; no land in sight, no stars or sun visible to guide them, the currents impossible to read. If they gods, or the ancestors, or whoever may be looking upon them didn’t send a sign--

_“Bwoook!”_

Losalo blinked. Either he’d hit his head even harder than he’d thought, or he’d heard a chicken. Which was impossible, of course. What would a chicken be doing in the middle of--

“This way!”

For a moment, Losalo thought he’d just heard Lupelele calling out. But it wasn’t right, because the voice had come from further away, somewhere out at sea. He squinted and looked around, but all he could see were waves and rain. He’d heard something, but where--

_“Skreeeeeeaw!”_

The screech of a hawk, impossibly loud even through the thunders, caused everybody on the boat to recoil. Losalo didn’t _see_ it flying over the boat - none of them did - but he felt and heard the sudden gust of wind, and instinctively turned to where the bird must have flown. It would head towards land,  any bird caught in such a storm would try to find dry land and-- wait. Was that…?

“There is a boat!”

“Oh gods, the sails, look at the sails!”

For a moment, the spiral on the boat’s sails was all that Losalo could see; then the boat overcame a wave and they could see the sole occupant, looking towards them and sailing over churning sea with seemingly no effort at all, hair whipping in the wind.

“This way! Follow me!” she called out again, and with that she turned the boat, heading straight into the heart of the storm. And they did follow, without question and without wasting one moment, because of course they knew _who_ had come to their aid - someone whose deeds had earned her a place among godly beings after her mortal life had ended.

The legend said that she would always come to lead the lost back on the right course, and that she was never alone in doing so. She wasn’t alone this time, either; _they_ were not alone, because suddenly there were so many boats all around them, sailing _with_ them, shining like moonlight and gliding over the water. The sound of drums drowned out the thunder, and the the echo of chanting rose over the sound of crashing waves.

“Ancestors,” Lupelele murmured, a quiet wonder in her voice. Somewhere on their left, a man wearing the traditional Chief headdress of Motunui looked straight at them through the storm and smiled. He mouthed something, the words lost in the wind, but Losalo knew what he’d just said without the shadow of a doubt, as though he’d heard it with his own ears.

_She knows the way._

And she did, she really did. As they followed, the storm grew weaker and weaker, until it ceased; their ancestors began fading away from sight like mist at dawn and, finally, they lost sight of Moana the Wayfinder as well. But that did not matter, it really didn’t.

Because just ahead of them, at the edge of the horizon, they could see _home._

* * *

“Looks like nobody’s home.”

“Maybe he’s at the village. I’m sure he’ll come as soon as he hears what happened. He knows we wouldn’t get so close to his island without at least dropping by to say hi.”

“Or we could go show ourselves, lap up some praise and pick him up.”

Maui’s suggestion caused Moana to laugh. “And knock him out of the spotlight? Not on _this_ island. We promised him not to steal his thunder, remember?”

Maui shrugged, leaning on his fishhook. “Well, we kind of did that already. Those guys must have guessed who saved their hides,” he pointed out.

“... Fair enough. But it’s not like we could leave them to drown,” Moana conceded, sitting down next to him and reaching to scratch Pua behind an ear. “Thanks for saving the one who fell off the boat, by the way.”

“Hey, you’re welcome. Good thing we bumped into each other earlier, huh? It was nice to say hi to your people as well. Looking for you was my next step after picking up the crab.”

“What is it you’re up against this time?”

“A bunch of Patupaiarehe. Annoying guys. They’re causing some trouble in an entire archipelago and hey, I could totally handle this myself, but what’s better than some team work for old times’ sake?”

Moana laughed again. As much as she loved sailing the oceans with her people in her wake, bringing lost voyagers back on course, there were few things she enjoyed as much as adventures for ‘old times’ sake’. As far as she was concerned, it was like taking a vacation.

* * *

What truly set Otemanu apart from all other islands on the sea was the fact that it was home to a being that the villagers considered akin to a guardian. Not that he did an awful lot of guarding, but his sheer size was more than enough to keep anybody from even thinking of causing their island trouble, and they supposed that counted. Plus, it just sounded cool.

Tamatoa had been there longer than any of them had been alive, and he had a wealth of stories to tell from even before their village came to be. One of his favorites was how he’d come to have gold embedded in his shell, but few had ever _seen_ that gold: it was hidden beneath everything else that covered his shell - seashells, bits of mother-of-pearl, a few actual pearls, colored glass, oddly-shaped rocks, bits of coral, carved wooden figurines. They were all gifts from their people’s children, generations of them, and Tamatoa had never thrown out a single one. If asked, he was able to point at each object on his shell and recall precisely who had gifted it to him and when, and then go on telling all he could recall about their lives. Generally in song form.

This time, however, he was not singing. He was, in a rare occurrence, listening very closely to someone else’s tale. As was the whole village, really.

“... And that is how we made it here!”

“There were the ancestors, too, roaming the ocean with her!”

“I saw my great grandfather there, I am sure of it! Just as I remembered him!”

“Do you think it was really her? The Wayfinder?”

The question was followed by a sudden silence as everybody in the village turned to look at Tamatoa. Sprawled on the sand, the giant crab rolled his eyes.

“No, you had a collective hallucination. Really now? There was the boat with the spiral coming out of nowhere, a bunch of glowy dead people showed up, you heard a chicken. I’d bet my right claw it was her,” he added, and grinned before turning to look out at sea. “Hey, you mentioned there was a hawk as well, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Losalo replied. “And also a shark who-- _oh._ Do you think… was it Maui? _That_ Maui?”

Tamatoa made a face. “I sure hope there isn’t another, because one is more than enough. And I’m about to have to hear him gloat,” he muttered before he stood and shook some sand off himself. Everyone present immediately held up their hands to shield their heads from it. “Well, glad to see you’re back. You’ll have to hold the welcome back party without me, because I may or may not be off for a while. A bummer, I know, but try to have fun anyway.”

The disappointed groans coming from the children covered the collective sigh of relief that left the adults. Tamatoa did have a tendency to get carried away, and easily forgot the tremendous amount of damage his sheer mass could deal to their village. No one had ever been hurt, but a few houses had to be rebuilt from scratch every once in a while; for all the affection they all had for him, knowing he’d pass that one time was a relief. A short-lived one.

“Wait! You’re going off with them, right?” one of the children, a girl called Nafanua, cried out. She ran across the beach to cling to one of Tamatoa’s massive limbs. “You always do that! My dad says that sometimes you go away and then you come back and you have new tales about Maui and Moana and I want to meet them! I want to come with you, too!”

“Huh. I don’t think you coming with us would be a good ide--”

“So you _are_ going with them!”

“I want to come, too!”

“Mom! Mom! Can I go?”

“I want to meet them!”

“Wha-- no no no! Moana will strangle me if I try to bring kids along with-- aw, come on! No crying! That’s unfair, guys! That’s blackmail, and-- _uuuugh._ Fine. _Fine._ Just stop making sad faces at me and hear me out. How about I get them here for the party before we’re off?”

The children gleefully took the offer - and, truth be told, so did the adults. Yes, they may have to rebuild a few things when all was said and done, but it would be a small price to pay to meet two demigods most of them had only heard of in their lifetimes.

And besides, if need be, they knew which spot to scratch to make Tamatoa fall asleep.

* * *

“So much for not stealing the spotlight. Thanks a lot, man.”

“You’re just jealous.”

“Well, _duh._ Of course I am! Those are _my_ humans!" Tamatoa protested, claws crossed. Sitting back against the mast, hands folded behind his head, Maui let out a laugh. 

“Hah! You were the one who invited us over to make kids happy - your fault for going soft. Of course they were going to be amazed by us,” he added, glancing behind them. Otemanu was growing smaller and smaller, and would soon fade beyond the horizon - and yet the crab just wouldn't drop the matter.

“You still didn’t have to go out of your way to act cool!”

“I never need to _act_ cool, buddy. it just comes natural."

"And now they even got to see me shrunk when we left! They were never supposed to see me like this!”

"Aw, no need to get _crabby._  They still love you. Just give them some time to get over how awesome I am. Sure, when you get back they may or may not want to hear all about _my_ role in our adventure--”

“Moana! Tell him to stop!”

Moana glanced down at Maui with a sigh, a hand holding the sails and one on the rudder. "Haven't we talked about this some three hundred times?" she asked, and Maui held up his hands.

“Fine, fine. I’ll keep my amazing snarking skills for the Patupaiarehe. So, how’s life been?”

“Pretty good, actually! Oh, and there are a couple more songs I thought up since last time. They’re pretty good if I say so myself, but let me know what you guys thin--"

 "Hey, Maui! You haven't told us what's exactly going on with the Patupaiarehe yet!" Moana said quickly. Tamatoa trailed off and blinked up at him, as though realizing just then that he really had no idea what the whole journey was going to be about.

"Oh, right! You didn't tell me a thing. What is all this about?"

Maui grinned, clearly relieved to have avoided songs for time being. "All right, fair enough. It's a bit of a long story, so I'll make it short. It was-"

"A Tuesday," Tamatoa supplied helpfully.

"No. It was--"

"A dark and stormy night?"

"Really now?"

"I'm just trying to help you, man. You're a terrible storyteller."

"Gee, thanks. Keep cutting me off and I'm not telling you anything. It was--"

"Bwaaak!"

"No, it wasn't that. Can you stop cutting me off? Thanks. Now, where was I?"

"It was a Tuesday."

"Right, thanks. It was-- oh, come on!"

There was laughter as the boat kept sailing towards rising sun, and it kept those on it from hearing another chuckle - that of a huge, blood-red lizard trailing behind them, only the very top of his head visible above the surface. Of course they would spot him sooner or later- they always did - but for as long as he could, he would try to enjoy the entertainment while staying out of sight. After all, that was half the fun.

With a grin, Pilifeai went back underwater and kept following the boat over the horizon.


End file.
